MIT News - Administration - MIT Administrationhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/rss/topic/administration
MIT News is dedicated to communicating to the media and the public the news and achievements of the students, faculty, staff and the greater MIT community.enTue, 28 Jul 2015 22:19:59 -0400MIT takes next step in advancing Kendall Square Initiativehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/kendall-square-filing-0728
Institute files application for Cambridge Planning Board review.Tue, 28 Jul 2015 22:19:59 -0400News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/kendall-square-filing-0728<p>Following recent <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/kendall-square-initiative-next-steps-0507">community meetings</a> to provide the campus and broader Cambridge communities with an update on MIT’s Kendall Square Initiative, the Institute has triggered the next phase of the review process by filing its Project Review and Planned Unit Development special permit applications with the Cambridge Planning Board.</p>
<p>The special permit process will examine all aspects of the proposal — including design, infrastructure, transportation, parking, and the public realm experience. The Institute’s proposal to create a vibrant mixed-use development features six new buildings on MIT-owned parking lots in the East Campus/Kendall Square area, including three for research and development, two for housing, and one for retail and office space. The Cambridge City Council <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2013/kendall-square-zoning-petition-approved-0409">approved</a> MIT’s rezoning petition in April 2013, which defined the parameters of the proposed development.</p>
<p>“Today’s filing represents a key step forward in getting to an exciting future for Kendall Square,” Executive Vice President and Treasurer Israel Ruiz says. “It will likely take six to 10 years to complete this vision, but I am really thrilled about how Kendall Square and MIT’s East Campus will be positively transformed in the coming decade.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>The Initiative will produce 500 net new housing units for graduate students and for market use, more than 100,000 square feet of new and repositioned ground-floor retail, and nearly 3 acres of new and repurposed connected open spaces — in addition to providing research and development space. The anticipated investment in the development of these projects will be at least $1.2 billion.</p>
<p>“We’ve come a long way, and I’m pleased with this thoughtful and robust proposal,” Provost Martin Schmidt says. “The critical involvement of the leadership of the School of Architecture and Planning helped us to crystalize our vision for East Campus. I want to express the Institute’s appreciation to Dean Hashim Sarkis and J. Meejin Yoon, head of the Department of Architecture, along with many of their colleagues and Associate Provost Karen Gleason, for guiding us to the current proposal. It has been an impressive team effort with a sound result.”</p>
<p>“As a bold new gateway to MIT, Kendall Square opens a new frontier for us to reimagine the relationship between town and gown,” Sarkis says. “Public spaces open into the campus and allow students, professors, residents, and visitors to mix. I am very excited for that future to be set in motion and believe we have all the right ingredients in place for it to unfold.”</p>
<p>The MIT Investment Management Company (MITIMCo) is leading the public review effort on behalf of the Institute, under the direction of the provost and the executive vice president and treasurer. “The first Cambridge Planning Board hearing to review MIT’s proposal will likely take place in September,” MITIMCo Managing Director Steve Marsh says, noting that the process has been under way for six years.&nbsp;“The full review process will take several months.”</p>
<p>More information about the project can be found on the <a href="http://kendallsquare.mit.edu/">Kendall Square Initiative website</a>. Questions, comments, and ideas can be sent to <a href="mailto:kendallsquare@mit.edu">kendallsquare@mit.edu</a>.</p>Main Street in Kendall SquareKendall Square, Design, Administration, Cambridge, Boston and region, Campus buildings and architecture, Community, Facilities, Provost, Residential life, Architecture, Real estate, School of Architecture and PlanningPaula Hammond named head of Department of Chemical Engineering http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/paula-hammond-named-head-department-chemical-engineering-0713
An MIT faculty member since 1995, Hammond succeeds Klavs Jensen as ChemE department head.Mon, 13 Jul 2015 11:59:59 -0400News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/paula-hammond-named-head-department-chemical-engineering-0713<p>Paula T. Hammond, the David H. Koch Professor in Engineering, has been named the new head of the Department of Chemical Engineering (ChemE), effective July 13. She is the first woman and first person of color appointed to the post.</p>
<p>The announcement was made this morning in a special faculty meeting of the department. “We are fortunate to have someone with Professor Hammond’s vision and dedication to lead this distinguished department,” says Ian A. Waitz, dean of the School of Engineering. “She has a deep knowledge of the Institute and has led a remarkable career as a researcher and educator. Please join me in congratulating Paula on this appointment.”</p>
<p>Hammond succeeds Klavs Jensen, the Warren K. Lewis Professor of Chemical Engineering, who has been the department head in ChemE since 2007; Jensen will reengage full time with teaching and research in the department. “Klavs has been a superb colleague, and he has set a very high bar for leadership of a department,” Waitz noted.</p>
<p>Hammond is a core faculty member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and was a founding member of the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies. She has collaborators in academic departments throughout the Institute, and has worked with clinicians and researchers at various Boston-area hospitals. Her research group focuses on biomaterials and drug delivery. Their research focuses on the self-assembly of polymeric nanomaterials; the core of her work is the use of electrostatics and other complementary interactions to generate functional materials with highly controlled architectures, including the development of new biomaterials and electrochemical energy devices. She and her former students and postdocs have started a range of biotech companies.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>Hammond’s many awards and honors include the Alpha Chi Sigma Award for Chemical Engineering Research in 2014, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Charles M. A. Stine Award in Materials Engineering and Science in 2013, the Ovarian Cancer Research Program Teal Innovator Award in 2013, the Junior Bose Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2000, an NSF Career Award in 1997, and the MIT Karl Taylor Compton Prize in 1992 (in recognition of achievements in citizenship and devotion to the welfare of MIT). She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a director of the Board of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and a fellow of the American Physical Society and American Institute of Biomedical and Biological Engineering, among other honors.</p>
<p>She has taught several classes over the past several years, including the <a href="http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/chemical-engineering/10-467-polymer-science-laboratory-fall-2005/" target="_blank">10.467</a> (Polymer Science Laboratory), <a href="http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/chemical-engineering/10-569-synthesis-of-polymers-fall-2006/" target="_blank">10.569</a> (Synthesis of Polymers), and 10.10 (Introduction to Chemical Engineering). Hammond previously served as executive officer of the department in 2008 through 2011. Hammond received her BS in chemical engineering from MIT in 1984, her MS from Georgia Tech in 1988, and earned her PhD from MIT in 1993.</p>
Paula HammondFaculty, Chemical engineering, Administration, teaching, academics, School of Engineering, Biomaterials, Koch Institute, Nanoscience and nanotechnology, Women, Women in STEM, DiversityColombo to retire from post as MIT’s dean for student lifehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/colombo-retire-dean-student-life-0706
Departure caps a 40-year career at MIT, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins.Mon, 06 Jul 2015 10:55:00 -0400News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/colombo-retire-dean-student-life-0706<p>Costantino (Chris) Colombo will retire from his post as MIT’s dean for student life after seven years of service, Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart announced today.</p>
<p>In an email to the MIT community, Barnhart said that Colombo will continue to serve as dean until a successor is appointed, and will then serve as an advisor to her until June 30, 2016.</p>
<p>“With this step, Chris will complete a remarkable, 40-year career of service to undergraduate and graduate students at MIT, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins,” Barnhart wrote. “He has been a mentor and coach to many student affairs professionals; today, the profession is populated with these individuals in senior positions at many universities.”</p>
<p>At MIT, Colombo has led the Division of Student Life (DSL), which includes the Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation (DAPER) as well as the Institute’s offices of Residential Life, Student Development and Support, and Religious Life. The dean for student life oversees a staff of more than 400, working to ensure the Institute’s commitment to a well-integrated student-life program that values both formal and informal learning.</p>
<p>“From the beginning, Dean Colombo and his wife, Bette, committed themselves completely to the MIT community, not only through his role as dean, but through their shared service as housemasters at Next House,” MIT President L. Rafael Reif says. “We are grateful to them both for making a difference in the lives of so many students.”</p>
<p>Since 2008, Colombo has implemented several major changes impacting student life: DSL introduced a new, comprehensive dining plan; revised both summer and conference housing policies; established a deferred-maintenance fund for dorms; instituted area directors in all dorms; and assisted in the reopening of Maseeh Hall as a newly renovated, 490-bed undergraduate dorm.</p>
<p>“It has been a great honor to serve MIT as dean for student life, and I am proud that my team has been able to enhance the student experience,” Colombo says. “I would like to thank the MIT leaders who made my time at MIT personally and professionally rewarding.”</p>
<p>During his tenure at MIT, Colombo has also overseen the drafting of an updated DSL strategic plan; implemented assessment initiatives within his division; and placed an emphasis on multiculturalism and diversity. Under his leadership, DSL conducted an extensive review of its housing, athletic, and campus activities facilities, which will be used to prioritize campus buildings for infrastructure renewal.</p>
<p>Prior to joining MIT in 2008, Colombo served for 10 years as dean of student affairs at Columbia University’s two undergraduate schools. Before that, he was Columbia’s dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid from 1995 to 1998, and dean of students for Columbia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science from 1992 to 1995. Colombo worked at Johns Hopkins University in a variety of positions from 1975 to 1992.</p>
<p>Barnhart announced that she will form a search committee, and charge it with recommending a list of candidates; she also welcomed suggestions from the community. Comments or suggestions may be sent via email to studentlife-search@mit.edu.</p>
Costantino (Chris) ColomboMIT Administration, President L. Rafael Reif, Students, Student lifeAndrea Louise Campbell named department head in political sciencehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/andrea-louise-campbell-head-mit-political-science-0618
Thu, 18 Jun 2015 00:00:00 -0400School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Scienceshttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/andrea-louise-campbell-head-mit-political-science-0618<p>Deborah Fitzgerald, the Kenan Sahin Dean of MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, has announced that Andrea Louise Campbell will become the new head of the Department of Political Science, and has been named the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor, both effective July 1.</p>
<p>Campbell, who has been associate head of the department for the past two years, has contributed vigorously to the political and public debate about health care and insurance. She is the author of "Trapped in America's Safety Net: One Family's Struggle" (University of Chicago Press, 2014);&nbsp;"How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Citizen Activism and the American Welfare State" (Princeton University Press, 2003);&nbsp;and, with Kimberly J. Morgan, "The Delegated Welfare State: Medicare, Markets, and the Governance of Social Provision" (Oxford&nbsp;University Press, 2011).</p>
<p>“Andrea’s scholarly and pedagogic profile, her deep understanding of the School and the Institute, and her longstanding reputation for dedication and integrity&nbsp;will serve her well in this leadership role,” Fitzgerald says.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.6;">Campbell says, “I am deeply honored to be appointed head of political science. It is a particularly auspicious time for the department as we head into our 50th anniversary. I look forward to working with the faculty, staff, and students as we continue to build on our trademark strengths: We address the ‘big questions’ that are highly consequential both to political science and to wider communities around the world,&nbsp;and we do so with a wide variety of quantitative and qualitative techniques and data that are appropriate to those questions and that are often at the cutting edge of the discipline.”</span></p>
<p>Campbell joined the MIT faculty in 2005, following an assistant professorship at Harvard University. Her research interests include American politics, political behavior, public opinion, and political inequality, particularly their intersection with social welfare policy, health policy, and tax policy. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Russell Sage Foundation. Campbell has also played a substantial role in the governance of the American Political Science Association.</p>
<p>In addition, over the years Campbell has served SHASS and MIT on many committees, including as a member of the Faculty Policy Committee, chair of the Committee on Undergraduate Programs' Subcommittee on the HASS (Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences) Requirement, chair of the Committee on Nominations, and co-chair of the Campus Sustainability Task Force.</p>
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Andrea Louise CampbellSHASS, Faculty, Political science, AdministrationThe Council for the Arts at MIT announces new leadership roleshttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/new-executive-committee-council-arts-mit-0616
Rick Stone ’76 will serve as chair, Karen Arenson ’70 as vice chairTue, 16 Jun 2015 10:00:00 -0400Leah Talatinian | Arts at MIThttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/new-executive-committee-council-arts-mit-0616<p>The Council for the Arts at MIT (CAMIT), whose membership has supported MIT's artistic initiatives for more than 40 years, announced new leadership at the CAMIT executive committee meeting this week. President L. Rafael Reif appointed Rick Stone SM ’76 as the new chair of the council. Karen Arenson ’70 will serve as vice chair. Each will serve three-year terms.</p>
<p>Philip S. Khoury, associate provost and the Ford International Professor of History, thanked the current executive committee and welcomed the new leadership. “We are grateful to Jane Pappalardo for her outstanding service as CAMIT chair, to vice chair Karen Kaufman, and to the entire executive committee for their unwavering support in furthering the arts at MIT, whether through the popular tickets program that allows students to attend performances and museums in the Boston area, the CAMIT grants program that awards funding for student and faculty arts projects, or prizes such as the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT. CAMIT’s support of numerous programs in the arts plays an essential role in the vibrant culture of creativity in the MIT community.”</p>
<p>Stone is a graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management. Now retired, Stone taught English and biblical literature at the beginning and end of his career. In between, he was in commercial and investment banking in New York. He also serves on the board of the MacDowell Colony, as chairman of the Paul Taylor American Modern Dance board, and is chair emeritus of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Foundation. He and his wife, Terry Stone SM ‘76, moved to Boston from North Carolina several years ago when she became the executive vice president and treasurer of MIT.</p>
<p>Arenson was a writer and editor for 30 years at <em>The New York Times</em>, where she focused primarily on economics and finance and on higher education, and occasionally squeezed in articles on the arts. An economics major at MIT, she also earned a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University. She served as president of the MIT Alumni Association and as a member of the MIT Corporation and its executive committee. She joined&nbsp;CAMIT in 2008, and is also a member of the List Visual Arts Committee Advisory Committee, where she has led the effort to expand the student loan art collection.</p>
<p>CAMIT was founded in 1972 by former MIT President Jerome B. Wiesner, and is an international volunteer group of alumni and friends established to support the arts at MIT. The council’s mission is to act as a catalyst for the development of a broadly based, highly participatory program in the arts, firmly founded on teaching, practice, and research at the Institute, and to conduct arts-related fundraising activities on behalf of MIT.&nbsp;The CAMIT’s programs are funded entirely by the annual contributions of its members.</p>
<p>The 99 CAMIT members, most of whom attended MIT, hail from around the globe. Be they practicing artists or leaders of industry, all CAMIT members have a passionate interest in the arts. Directed by Susan Cohen, CAMIT welcomes new members on an ongoing basis.</p>
Rick Stone and Karen ArensonAdministration, Arts, Council for the Arts at MIT, Sloan School of Management, Economics, SHASSJeffrey S. Ravel named head of MIT Historyhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/jeffrey-ravel-head-mit-history-0616
Tue, 16 Jun 2015 00:00:00 -0400School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Scienceshttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/jeffrey-ravel-head-mit-history-0616<p>Deborah Fitzgerald, the Kenan Sahin Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, has named Jeffrey S. Ravel, a professor of history, as head of the MIT History section, effective July 1.</p>
<p>“I’m delighted that Jeff has agreed to take on this post," Fitzgerald says. "He is an outstanding historian, committed both to the mission of MIT History and to its members, and I am confident he will ensure the continued excellence of the section."</p>
<p>Ravel, who holds a secondary appointment in Global Studies and Languages, researches French and European political culture from the mid-17th through mid-19th centuries. He is author of "The Would-Be Commoner: A Tale of Deception, Murder, and Justice in Seventeenth Century France" (Houghton Mifflin, 2008) and "The Contested Parterre: Public Theater and French Political Culture, 1680-1791" (Cornell University Press, 1999).</p>
<p>“I am privileged to be able to serve as head of this dynamic section,” Ravel says. “Our MIT historians write cutting-edge monographs, and publish in national and international newspapers and journals. They contribute to the newest frontiers in world and transnational history, and to the history of the environment. In our graduate seminars and undergraduate classrooms, we introduce MIT’s brilliant students to the pleasures and paradoxes of the past.&nbsp;In doing so, we foster an historical literacy that encourages MIT students to think deeply about change in earlier periods. Having a nuanced understanding of past successes and failures — one that takes into account multiple factors over variable time frames — helps our graduates fulfill MIT's mission of service to the nation and the world.”<br />
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Ravel, who joined the MIT faculty in 1997, is a co-founder of CÉSAR, a website devoted to the study of 17th-and 18th-century French theater. He also directs the Comédie-Française Registers Project, a collaborative venture with the Bibiliothèque-musée of the Comédie Française theater troupe and several French universities.&nbsp;He is a past co-president of the Society for French Historical Studies, and current president of the MIT chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.</p>
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Jeffrey S. RavelSHASS, Faculty, Global Studies and Languages, History, AdministrationAmy Brand named new director of the MIT Presshttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/amy-brand-director-mit-press-0615
Executive and MIT alumna has a deep background in academic publishing and communications.Mon, 15 Jun 2015 14:59:59 -0400Peter Dizikes | MIT News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/amy-brand-director-mit-press-0615<p>The MIT Press has named Amy Brand PhD ’89, an executive with a wide array of experience in academic publishing and communications, as its new director. She will begin in this position on July 20.</p>
<p>Brand has previously worked at multiple universities in publishing and scholarly communications — including a period as an editor at the MIT Press — in addition to holding leadership roles with independent firms that facilitate scholarly publishing and research. Her doctorate is in cognitive science, a traditional area of strength at the press.</p>
<p>“I am thrilled to be returning to MIT as director of the MIT Press,” Brand told <em>MIT News</em>. “My years as a graduate student and at the press were among the most gratifying in my career, and it is especially exciting to make this homecoming and assume leadership of the press at a time when academic publishers are being challenged to reinvent themselves. Like the Institute itself, the MIT Press has a stellar reputation and a history of taking risks, and I’m looking forward to breaking new ground.”</p>
<p>MIT hired Brand after an extensive search run by a committee composed of both MIT-based members and external experts in academic publishing.&nbsp;</p>
<p>“Amy’s breadth of experience across many sectors of the scholarly communication system make her the ideal leader for the MIT Press at this time of tremendous change and opportunity in scholarly publishing,” says Chris Bourg, director of the MIT Libraries, who chaired the search committee for the position. &nbsp;</p>
<p>Most recently, since early 2014, Brand has been a vice president at Digital Science, a firm that produces software for scientific research and is a division of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, the majority owner of Springer Nature, publisher of the journal <em>Nature</em>,&nbsp;among other titles.</p>
<p>From 2008 until 2013, Brand was at Harvard University, where she worked as assistant provost for faculty appointments and information and as a program manager in Harvard’s Office for Scholarly Communication.</p>
<p>Brand served from 1994 to 2000 as an executive editor for the MIT Press in the area of cognitive science and linguistics.</p>
<p>Brand has also worked for Ingenta, an e-journal hosting platform, and CrossRef, a nonprofit association of academic publishers that has helped develop the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), a standard for scholarly referencing.</p>
<p>Brand graduated with a degree in linguistics from Barnard College in 1985 before obtaining her doctorate from MIT. She was a postdoc at the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science at the University of Pennsylvania from 1989 until 1992, before moving into academic publishing.</p>
<p>In a letter to MIT faculty, Bourg added that as director of the MIT Press, Brand will oversee “all aspects of its business and operations, from traditional content acquisition through the development and management of innovative tools and technologies for the delivery of ideas and intellectual property to a worldwide audience.” The director will also develop new initiatives and steer the press’s publishing list to reflect the intellectual orientation of the Institute.</p>
<p>One of the largest and most respected university presses in the world, the MIT Press is known for quality, innovation, and distinctive design. The press publishes books, journals, and digital products in selected fields across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Its major fields include art and architecture; cognitive science; computer science; economics; environmental science; and science, technology, and society studies. The press is noted for its work in emerging fields of scholarship, its international distribution, and its pioneering uses of technology. &nbsp;</p>
<p>Brand succeeds Ellen W. Faran, who has served as director of the MIT Press since 2003, and who oversaw its continued expansion into areas of digital distribution while sustaining its strengths in acquisitions and journal publishing.</p>
Amy Brand PhD ’89MIT Press, Administration, Libraries, StaffClimate-change committee submits community’s recommendationshttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/climate-change-committee-community-recommendations-0615
Zuber seeks comments on report ahead of giving recommendations to Reif.Mon, 15 Jun 2015 12:00:00 -0400News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/climate-change-committee-community-recommendations-0615<p>Today, Vice President for Research Maria Zuber is releasing <a href="http://web.mit.edu/vpr/climate/MIT_Climate_Change_Conversation_Report_2015.pdf">a report</a> from a committee charged with engaging the MIT community on the issue of climate change. The report offers an expansive suite of ideas about how MIT can most productively contribute to solving the problem.</p>
<p>In releasing the report, Zuber is inviting comments on it via email (to <a href="mailto:climateconversation@mit.edu">climateconversation@mit.edu</a>) from the MIT community over the next 30 days: This further input will help inform recommendations that will be presented to MIT President L. Rafael Reif this summer.</p>
<p>Today’s report caps a year’s work. In May 2014, Reif <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/letter-mit-community-regarding-new-institute-wide-environment-initiative">announced</a> that he was asking Susan Solomon, the Ellen Swallow Richards Professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences — named that day as the founding director of an Institute-wide environmental initiative — to work with Zuber, Provost Martin Schmidt, and MIT Energy Initiative Director Robert Armstrong (together with Solomon, the “Conversation Leadership”) to launch a campus-wide conversation on the challenge of climate change.</p>
<p>Toward that end, in September, Zuber <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/zuber-letter-climate-change-conversation-0919">announced</a> the establishment of the MIT Climate Change Conversation Committee, which was charged with seeking broad input from the Institute community on how the U.S. and the world can most effectively address global climate change. That <a href="http://climatechange.mit.edu/committee">committee</a>, which reported to the Conversation Leadership, was established with input from the members of the group Fossil Free MIT and the MIT Office of Sustainability.</p>
<p>The committee was asked to work with the MIT community to explore pathways to effective climate mitigation, including how the MIT community — through education, research, and campus engagement — might constructively move the global and national agendas forward. The committee was assigned to produce a final report to be delivered to the Conversation Leadership. The report was to list, in unranked order, key suggestions with associated pros and cons that encompassed the range of views of the community.</p>
<p>The Conversation Leadership will carefully review the report, as well as any further input from members of the MIT community, before presenting recommendations to Reif. In the fall, Reif will announce a plan for community-wide MIT action on climate change.</p>
<p>Since its establishment, the committee has engaged the MIT community in a number of ways. From January to May of this year, five events were held, including a <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/larry-linden-climate-change-0123">lecture</a> about the urgency of climate change by MIT alumnus (and former White House advisor and Goldman Sachs partner) Larry Linden; a <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/communicating-climate-change-focus-on-solutions-0402">panel discussion</a> about the difficulties around communicating with the public about climate change; and a <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/debate-fossil-fuel-divestment-0410">debate</a> about the call for MIT to divest from fossil fuels. In April and May, a listening tour comprising six sessions in locations across campus was conducted. And since November, the committee has hosted an <a href="http://climatechange.mit.edu/ideabank">idea bank</a> devoted to climate change, which has seen participation from nearly 600 members of the MIT community, including students, faculty, and alumni.</p>
<p>In an email to the community today, Zuber thanked the committee for its work. “By tackling this important assignment with energy, imagination and seriousness, [the committee members] delivered to our community an exceptionally constructive and illuminating process for exploring the most effective strategies for climate action,” Zuber said. “In the best MIT tradition of clear-eyed problem-solving, their thoughtful groundwork enabled the MIT community to address this urgent, complex and highly charged subject in a way that left us all better informed and better prepared to act.”</p>
Community, Administration, Climate change, President L. Rafael Reif, Sustainability, EnvironmentMetcalfe to serve as visiting innovation fellow for 2015-16 academic yearhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/metcalfe-visiting-innovation-fellow-0608
Ethernet co-inventor and 3Com founder will shape Start6, EECS’s innovation and entrepreneurship workshop.Mon, 08 Jun 2015 00:00:00 -0400Kelly Courtney | MIT Innovation Initiativehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/metcalfe-visiting-innovation-fellow-0608<p>Ethernet co-inventor and 3Com founder Robert Metcalfe ’68 will become a visiting innovation fellow at MIT for one week a month during the 2015-16 academic year, engaging in entrepreneurship activities at the MIT Innovation Initiative and in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS).</p>
<p>As visiting innovation fellow, Metcalfe succeeds former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who held the post this spring.</p>
<p>Metcalfe, a professor of innovation in the Cocknell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, will engage with MIT students and mentor them in startup activities; participate in campus innovation events; hold office hours; participate in innovation roundtables; and serve as an advisor to the Lab for Innovation Science and Policy. He will play a significant role in helping to shape <a href="https://start6-2015.mit.edu">Start6</a>, an EECS-launched workshop that immerses students and postdocs in innovation and entrepreneurship, providing them with the resources to translate their passion into needed technology solutions.</p>
<p>Start6 exposes graduate and undergraduate students, as well as postdocs, to various entrepreneurial paths. By meeting successful entrepreneurs and leaders in venture capital, students have the opportunity to broadly engage innovation resources at MIT and the supporting entrepreneurial ecosystem, so they can shape their own success.</p>
<p>“Innovation drives the virtuous cycle of freedom and prosperity,” Metcalfe says. “Startups out of research universities have proven to be among the most effective ways of innovating — startups built the Internet. It is exciting to have this opportunity to link the startup ecosystems of Austin and Boston.”</p>
<p>Metcalfe is a life member emeritus of the MIT Corporation — the Institute’s board of trustees — and an Internet pioneer: While a computer scientist at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center, he was the lead inventor of Ethernet. He then became an entrepreneur, founding and growing the multibillion-dollar networking company 3Com, now part of Hewlett-Packard. Metcalfe is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and, in 2005, received the National Medal of Technology.</p>
<p>“I have known Bob Metcalfe for more than 15 years, from when I served as associate department head in EECS,” MIT President L. Rafael Reif says. “Bob’s influence in today’s Internet-centered world is hard to overstate. He has a discerning mind that engages creatively on a very wide range of topics, and he asks the kind of tough questions that push you to imagine something entirely new.&nbsp;I have learned a great deal from Bob, and I believe others in our community will also enjoy and learn from his daring way of thinking.”</p>
<p>Innovation Initiative co-director Vladimir Bulović, the Fariborz Maseeh Professor of Emerging Technology and associate dean for innovation in MIT’s School of Engineering, says he looks forward to harnessing Metcalfe’s expertise in technology and entrepreneurship to further educate the next generation of global innovators.</p>
<p>“Since its founding, MIT has aspired to educate students at the intersection of theoretical and practical skills,” Bulović says. “Bob is an innovator who excelled in translating fundamental ideas into broad impact by connecting every aspect of the innovation ecosystem. His vast experience will bring enormous value to our students.”</p>
<p>For eight years, Metcalfe was publisher of “IDG InfoWorld,” writing a column that was read weekly by hundreds of thousands of information technologists. He has authored books including “Packet Communication” (PN, 1973) and “Internet Collapses and Other InfoWorld Punditry” (IDG Books, 2000). He is an emeritus partner of the Massachusetts-based venture capital firm Polaris Venture Partners.</p>
<p>Metcalfe earned two bachelor’s degrees, in electrical engineering and in industrial management, from MIT in 1969. He then went on to earn a master’s degree in applied mathematics and a Ph.D. in computer science from Harvard University.</p>
Robert MetcalfeSchool of Engineering, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (eecs), Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E), Entrepreneurship, Innovation Initiative, Startups, Administration, President L. Rafael Reif, honors and fellowshipsMIT Corporation elects new membershttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/corporation-elects-new-members-0605
Eight term members will each serve five years on MIT’s board of trustees.Thu, 04 Jun 2015 23:59:59 -0400News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/corporation-elects-new-members-0605<p>The MIT Corporation — the Institute’s board of trustees —&nbsp;elected eight term members, who will each serve for five years, during its quarterly meeting held yesterday afternoon. Corporation Chairman Robert B. Millard ’73 announced the election results; all positions are effective July 1.</p>
<p>The eight term members are: Roger C. Altman; Leslie C. Dewan ’06, PhD ’13; Jeffrey S. Halis ’76, SM ’76; Jean Hammond SM ’86; Ray A. Rothrock SM ’78; Donald E. Shobrys ’75; Jeffrey L. Silverman ’68; and Viktor F. Vekselberg.</p>
<p>The Corporation also announced John D. Chisholm ’75, SM ’75 as the 2015-16 president of the Association of Alumni and Alumnae, effective July 1. As such, he becomes ex officio member of the Corporation and of the Corporation Joint Advisory Committee on Institute-Wide Affairs. He succeeds Shobrys, who will return to the Corporation for a five-year term.</p>
<p>As of July 1, the Corporation will consist of 76 distinguished leaders in education, science, engineering, and industry; of those, 25 are life members and 8 are ex officio. An additional 34 individuals are life members emeritus.</p>
<p>Life members serve without a specific term until they turn 75 years old, while term members serve for five years. Both types of members have voting rights in the Corporation. Alumni nominees and representatives of recent graduating classes also serve five-year terms. At age 75, life members become life members emeritus; while they no longer have a vote, they continue to play an active role in Institute affairs.</p>
<p>This year’s elected term members are:</p>
<p><strong>Roger C. Altman</strong></p>
<p><img alt="" src="/sites/mit.edu.newsoffice/files/Altman%2C-Roger-2015_0.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 300px;" /></p>
<p><em>Founder and executive chairman of Evercore Partners</em></p>
<p>Altman earned his bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Altman was named general partner at Lehman Brothers in 1974, and returned there later as co-head of overall investment banking, and as a member of the management committee and board of directors. Beginning in 1977, he served as assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury for four years, and then as deputy secretary from 1993 to 1995. In 1987, he joined the Blackstone Group as vice chairman, head of the firm’s advisory business, and a member of its investment committee. In 1995, he formed Evercore, which now has 75 partners, 1,300 employees, and has handled more than $1.5 trillion in transactions.</p>
<p><strong>Leslie Dewan</strong></p>
<p><img alt="" src="/sites/mit.edu.newsoffice/files/Dewan%2C-Leslie-2015.jpg" style="width: 260px; height: 241px;" /></p>
<p><em>Co-founder and CEO of Transatomic Power</em></p>
<p>Dewan earned two bachelor’s degrees from MIT, in mechanical engineering and nuclear engineering, in 2006, and a PhD in nuclear engineering from MIT in 2013. She is co-founder and CEO of Transatomic Power, which is developing a molten-salt reactor that converts nuclear waste into electric power. Before earning her PhD, she designed search-and-rescue robots for a local robotics company. She was named an MIT Presidential Fellow in 2008, and the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellow in 2010. In 2013, Dewan was named one of <em>Time</em>’s “30 People Under 30 Changing the World,” and one of “35 Innovators Under 35” by <em>MIT Technology Review</em>.</p>
<p><strong>Jeffrey S. Halis</strong></p>
<p><img alt="" src="/sites/mit.edu.newsoffice/files/Halis%2C-Jeff-2015.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 300px;" /></p>
<p><em>Founder, president, and CEO of Tyndall Management </em></p>
<p>Halis earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1976. He is founder, president, and CEO of Tyndall Management, an investment firm specializing in publicly traded securities. After graduating from MIT Sloan, he joined Citibank, where he spent five years on liability management. He then became an investment banker at Merrill Lynch, specializing in mergers and acquisitions. He then operated an investment fund on behalf of GTO Inc. until founding Tyndall. Halis has served on the Corporation’s Investment Management Company Board since 2014, and served on the Development Committee from 2003 to 2006. He has also served on the visiting committee for Brain and Cognitive Sciences since 2005.</p>
<p><strong>Jean Hammond</strong></p>
<p><img alt="" src="/sites/mit.edu.newsoffice/files/Hammond%2C-Jean-2015.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 300px;" /></p>
<p><em>Co-founder, chairperson, and partner at LearnLaunch</em></p>
<p>Hammond earned a master’s degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1986, following a bachelor’s degree in biology from Boston University in 1977. She is co-founder, chairperson, and partner at LearnLaunch, an organization that supports the growth of educational technology and innovative firms. Previously, she was founder and CEO of Quarry Technologies; founder and vice president of marketing at Axon Networks; and director of strategy for 3Com. Hammond is an active angel investor, and an active mentor at TCN, TechStars, and MassChallenge. She has served on the North American Executive Board of MIT Sloan, and as an entrepreneur-in-residence at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. &nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Ray A. Rothrock</strong></p>
<p><img alt="" src="/sites/mit.edu.newsoffice/files/Rothrock%2C-Ray-2015.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 300px;" /></p>
<p><em>CEO of RedSeal</em></p>
<p>Rothrock earned his bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering from Texas A&amp;M University, a master’s in nuclear engineering from MIT, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. In 2014, Rothrock became CEO of RedSeal, a cyber analytics company. Prior to RedSeal, Rothrock was a general partner at Venrock, where he invested in 53 companies, including more than a dozen in cybersecurity. He was the 2012-13 chairman of the National Venture Capital Association. Since 2012, he’s served on the MIT Corporation’s Development Committee. He also served on visiting committees for Music and Theater Arts (2013 to present), Nuclear Science and Engineering (2005 to 2012), and Nuclear Engineering (2003 to 2004).</p>
<p><strong>Donald E. Shobrys</strong></p>
<p><img alt="" src="/sites/mit.edu.newsoffice/files/Shobrys%2C-Don-2014.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 300px;" /></p>
<p><em>Co-director of the MIT Venture Mentoring Service</em></p>
<p>Shobrys earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from MIT in 1975, a master’s in environmental engineering from Northwestern University in 1978, and a PhD in operations research from Johns Hopkins University in 1981. Early in his career, he worked at Exxon and Chesapeake Decision Sciences, which was a pioneer in using operations research and artificial intelligence to improve supply chain management. With Chesapeake, he helped Fortune 1000 companies redesign their operations management functions with data analytical tools. Shobrys is a co-director and mentor for the MIT Venture Mentoring Service. He was elected ex officio of the Corporation in 2014, and serves on the Joint Advisory Committee and Development Committee.</p>
<p><strong>Jeffrey L. Silverman</strong></p>
<p><img alt="" src="/sites/mit.edu.newsoffice/files/Silverman%2C-Jeff-2015.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 300px;" /></p>
<p><em>Founder and chairman of Agman Partners</em></p>
<p>Silverman earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial management from MIT in 1968. He is the founder and chairman of Agman Partners, a private investment firm. Silverman was a trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where he was a long-serving director. He was an angel supporter for the MIT Evergreen Energy Fund, which resulted in a dramatic savings in energy for MIT, while leading the way for other institutions. He also provided initial funding for MIT’s “Just Jerusalem” competition, envisioning peace in the Middle East. Currently, he supports the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer through a communications outreach project. He served on the Corporation’s Development Committee from 1996 to 1999.</p>
<p><strong>Viktor F. Vekselberg</strong></p>
<p><img alt="" src="/sites/mit.edu.newsoffice/files/Vekselberg%2C-Viktor-2013.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 300px;" /></p>
<p><em>Chairman of Renova Group and president of the Skolkovo Foundation </em></p>
<p>Vekselberg graduated from the Moscow Railway Transport Engineering Institute in the faculty of automation and computer engineering in 1979. At the Computing Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences, he earned his master’s degree and PhD in mathematics. In 1990, Vekselberg co-founded the Renova Asset Management Company. Since 1996, he’s served as president of the Siberian-Urals Aluminum Group, becoming chairman of the board in 2003. Vekselberg participates in numerous public organizations that support the development of the Russian economy, business, and culture. In March 2010, Dmitry Medvedev, president of the Russian Federation, appointed Vekselberg as lead organizer for the Innovation Center in Skolkovo. Since June 2010, he has been the president of the Skolkovo Foundation.</p>
<p><strong>John D. Chisholm</strong></p>
<p><img alt="" src="/sites/mit.edu.newsoffice/files/Chisholm%2C-John-2015.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 300px;" /></p>
<p><em>CEO of John Chisholm Ventures</em></p>
<p>Chisholm earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He was founder, chairman, and CEO of Decisive Technology, and publisher of the first software for online surveys and of CustomerSat, a leading provider of enterprise feedback management systems. Today, he is CEO of John Chisholm Ventures, an entrepreneurship advisory and investment firm. He also serves on the advisory boards of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research, and Spark Academy. He’s a mentor for the MIT Venture Mentoring Service and other programs. Since 2009, he’s served on the Corporation’s Development Committee. From 2004 to 2008, he served on the visiting committee for Mathematics.</p>
Alumni/ae, Commencement, Administration, MIT CorporationMIT students interview Megan Smith, U.S. CTO and 2015 Commencement speaker http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/interview-megan-smith-us-cto-0601
Smith chronicles her time at MIT, role at the White House, and view of how technology is changing the world. Mon, 01 Jun 2015 10:00:00 -0400Samir Luther and Priya Garghttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/interview-megan-smith-us-cto-0601<p><em>Samir Luther MBA ’15 and Priya Garg ’15 recently spoke with Megan Smith ’86, SM ’88, </em><em>this year’s commencement speaker, about her work at the White House, her time at MIT, and her view of how technology is changing the world. Luther and Garg are excited to share the interview ahead of commencement so that the MIT community has the opportunity to get to know Smith a bit better before the big day.</em></p>
<p><em>Smith is the Chief Technology Officer of the United States and an assistant to President Barack Obama. In the past, she has served as the vice president of Google[x], CEO of PlanetOut, and was the co-founder of the Malala Fund. She served as a member of the MIT Corporation from 1988 to 1993, and again from 2006 to 2014. Smith earned her BS in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1986 and her MS in mechanical engineering in 1988, completing her master’s thesis work in the MIT Media Lab.</em></p>
<p><em>Samir Luther is a finance, operations and analytics MBA student who is passionate about financial inclusion, mobile technology, expanding Internet access, and open data. Priya Garg is an undergraduate majoring in mechanical engineering with a focus in medical devices. She is interested in applying tools learned at MIT to create lasting innovation within the healthcare industry.</em></p>
<p><em>A full transcript of the interview is below. Readers can also watch an edited version of the interview, embedded here.&nbsp; </em></p>
<div class="cms-placeholder-content-video"></div>
<p><strong>LUTHER:</strong> We are really excited to be able to share more about you with the graduating class of MIT undergrad and grad 2015!</p>
<p><strong>SMITH:</strong> Thanks, it’s an honor to be here and I am so excited, what a force that this class is going to be.</p>
<p><strong>LUTHER:</strong> We know it. One of the reasons we are so excited to speak with you is because you are breaking down barriers, not only as a woman in government, but as a woman in tech.</p>
<p>Most recently, you moved from Google[x] to this position of service for our nation and you have also shown your commitment to serving women around the world by creating the Malala Fund and PlanetOut in the 90s. Can you speak about the role that service has played in your life?</p>
<p><strong>SMITH:</strong> Yeah and it's actually really relevant with MIT because in a lot of ways service is one of the things that you see is a theme that students are part of over and over and over again.</p>
<p>What's cool with MIT is that we have people who, for whatever reason, have come to love science and technology and are aware of how to use those tools in order to make great change in the world. Sometimes it's in a very pure science way through discovery of things — look at amazing Nobel Prize winners and others in science — but sometimes in a very applied area. I went to school with Amy Smith, who is on faculty now doing just extraordinary work with the teams around development engineering at MIT and bringing really great collaborations with people all over the world who might not have the design resources and time of MIT students. They bring the ingenuity together with ingenuity of colleagues from poorer places in the world to develop extraordinary solutions. I believe in service as a core part of technology and I love to use tech and science and innovation for particularly helping make the world a better place, helping reduce our impact on the planet, helping people collaborate better, helping bring a peaceful and more engaged society into being together.</p>
<p><strong>LUTHER:</strong> Was service a part of your life when you were graduating from MIT?</p>
<p><strong>SMITH:</strong> Yeah, I think so. Actually, I was just in Buffalo, New York. I was talking at my high school. I went to this really new intercity magnet school in Buffalo that was great and I was lucky because our teachers founded our school.</p>
<p>One of my favorite things was when one of the teachers applied for a grant, I think it was my sophomore year. The first 10 days of school were almost like a freshman seminar instead of regular class. Our physics teacher taught something called “City as an Ecosystem” and so we got to go to this huge water treatment plant, to the dump, riding our bikes through Buffalo and seeing all the different neighborhoods that have grown and the architecture changes in the city. It was a really great eye-opening way to be very embedded in the city we lived in, in a way that we had never really probably noticed at that level. Thinking about ecosystems and learning about it in such a tangible physical way about our city was so creative and so great. I was lucky to have those kinds of exposures.</p>
<p>We also were lucky because we had mandatory science fair. You got to learn how to do these things and that the stuff was fun and also the confidence that comes with it. Our swimming coach said practice makes permanent, and we got a lot of that.</p>
<p>So, understanding that science and math aren’t just about learning facts in class or boring, but really about discovery, and thinking about what stuff is made of — I was really lucky. Service and fun was all a part of it.</p>
<p><strong>GARG:</strong> You mentioned that you were at MIT with Amy Smith. You got your undergrad and your master’s degrees here. You have since remained extremely active by serving on the board of MIT, as well as the advisory boards of the Media Lab, Draper, and the <em>Technology Review</em>. How has MIT evolved over the years, and in what ways has it stayed the same?</p>
<p><strong>SMITH:</strong> That’s an interesting question. Also, I just encourage everybody to take the parts that are interesting to you and keep staying involved in them. It might be your living group, it might be the sport you play or theater or music or student government, the lab that you are in, the UROP that you had. All of those are pieces that you can stay connected to MIT with.</p>
<p>One of the things that’s great and actually is a big change is really the Internet has changed MIT. I think that I had a really interesting experience because I was a mechanical engineering student and so I did my undergrad and then I was in Media Lab as a grad student and we had email. It just seemed like the basic difference of using email together as a collaborative community in the 80s in the Media Lab versus the mechanical engineering students who didn’t really have that yet — I mean we sort of had it, but we didn’t use it in the same way. The classic Media Lab thing is, “Hey there’s an art opening downstairs, there’s food,” and all the grad students, you know, swarm. Or, “Hey, it’s 6 a.m., who’s still here, I think whatever restaurant’s about to open. Whoever pulled all-nighters, where are you sleeping in building?” and then trying to find people, you know, classic MIT behavior. We didn’t have that and so I think people were more isolated in their labs in those days where the communities now have been able to blossom. MIT has always had extraordinary community and collaboration, but I think email has created a much friendlier, happier, more integrated campus in some ways, which has been really good.</p>
<p><strong>LUTHER:</strong> I think you would be happy to know, if you don’t already know, that free food Listserv has evolved rather extensively!</p>
<p><strong>GARG:</strong> So do you think the progression of technology has actually contributed to a more cohesive community?</p>
<p><strong>SMITH:</strong> Yes, I think that people were in more silos and so depending on which group you were in and what was going on, you had that culture. There of course have always been so many unique and fun cultures that are all across MIT, but they are more fluid. You can move fluidly between them a little bit more.</p>
<p><strong>GARG:</strong> That’s crazy that the mechanical engineering programs didn’t have email or Internet. I don’t know how I would have gotten through the past four years without it.</p>
<p><strong>SMITH:</strong> We sort of got it as we got to school, so it was really interesting to watch the difference in culture as it came. I remember going with two friends—this was later, when I was working for Apple Japan, I was in Tokyo — and I was coming to San Diego to go do some stuff with two MIT friends from the Media Lab. I realized as I got off the plane that I hadn’t spoken to them on the phone. And this is sort of ancient history, but I was like wow, all this organizing in email — the whole future is going to be exactly like this and of course it is, which is cool. There’s these moments when you realize how it’s going to change a lot.</p>
<p><strong>GARG:</strong> So along that line of when you realized that you didn’t use the telephone during that trip and you thought, this is the future — what do you think is the future for MIT?</p>
<p><strong>SMITH:</strong> Yeah, it's so exciting right now. I was in the board when we were working on discussions of edX. One of my favorite things: If you go into the Infinite Corridor and you are walking between Building 7 towards Building 10 and take a right on Building 3 and you go down that corridor, there is a little display from the libraries that has maybe the first dozen years of MIT. One time I was looking at it and I realized that in 1865 or ’64, around the first time we started teaching classes, you will notice that we taught for free in the evening.</p>
<p>So from day one this idea of Opencourseware and edX has been part of MIT. We didn’t have an Internet or a telecommunication system in the way we do today so that anyone could attend, but it was through something called the Lowell Institute, which was awesome. This idea of inclusive learning and being in service through communicating and sharing — whether it is that example or the days of the Physics Department with their skinny black ties, in the 50s or the 60s making all these films that high school students all over the United States and the world watch to see demos from MIT labs — just this service to learn and this love of learning is a big part of our culture, which is so great. I think this is the next wave of that, that’s the next iteration.</p>
<p>There’s a really famous lecture former President Paul Gray mentioned, that Edwin Land wrote, which is apparently the foundation of the UROP Program. He wrote in a very sexist voice, so if you happen to read it, take boy and just insert boy and girl. It will be more palatable to read today because it is really annoying to read in that way. But if you do that, it’s filled with this idea of coming to school and being in a much more hands-on experience, coming into the labs of all our amazing faculty and really having a da Vinci–like experience with them where you get to explore in the directions you want to go and you can take the classes as you need them.</p>
<p>There was a hackathon here for the future of school and people were playing with the idea of gaming school. They had this idea to build a “billion-dollar school,” and we were like, what’s a billion-dollar school? The idea was that children would work on “billion-dollar problems.” Meaning, maybe this year we will work on dirty water because it’s costing more than a billion dollars. If you worked on solving dirty water, you have to learn sociology and human behavior, learn some chemistry, some biology, you have to learn some mechanics and some dynamics and fluids, and it’s a really cool way to approach life.</p>
<p>That was what the UROP roots to. And then, of course, Professor MacVicar, who I had for a freshman physics recitation. She was awesome. MacVicar Fellows went on to then adapt that idea and really form what is UROP, which is such a critical part of the MIT education. Hopefully in some ways UROP becomes more of what we do, this hands-on thing. The classes or lectures become only the most extraordinary-performed lectures that we want to go see live, and the rest can happen in a more iterative classroom way.</p>
<p>I know the 3.091 team had done some interesting experiments. They were having people submit their homework and then it got pre-graded. If you wanted 24 more hours, you can have it. That was so great because then emphasis was on learning the thing, learning the subject. Who cares about the grade? Like, learn the thing.</p>
<p>So I am really excited about where MIT will go with iteration and a brilliant group of people working together thinking about it. Lots of fits and starts will happen, some things will work, some things won’t. Sometimes the faculty in a department is doing things in a particular way and people think of them as the fringe faculty who are doing some really weird, crazy thing, but if you look at it, it is the way it is going to be and pretty soon they will move to the center. All the ingredients are there, so a lot of the MITx work that different faculty members are playing around with I think will come to the center.</p>
<p>I am also excited about more students being able to come and go. You can work remotely, do projects in other parts of the world or other parts of the country and have more people be able to come on campus and create even more flow. I love where the Media Lab is going and I love what other labs are doing. It’s a nexus place: the more connections the better, the more interactions the better. The more we interface, the more talent gets unlocked.</p>
<p><strong>LUTHER:</strong> Given that you are in a tremendous platform to tackle some huge problems whether it was at Google[x] or whether on the board of MIT or at the White House, what is still keeping you up at night? What are you worried are the things that your children are going to have to face?</p>
<p><strong>SMITH:</strong> There is a pretty intense list of those things, whether it is climate change or critical inclusion things, unfairness and poverty. Amazing work that people are doing at MIT and other places around the world around biological threats, Ebola issues, medicine.</p>
<p>I am an optimist, so I really like to work towards solutions of things. What I am trying to do is unlock talent and help people with whatever it is they are incredibly passionate about doing; help enable them to do that and get people more access to resources, including each other.</p>
<p>A really good example: We just had a tech meet-up here at the White House of all the tech meet-up organizers. One of the things that’s interesting is there are many people who will listen to this who will know about and probably have been to things like TEDx or hackathons. A lot of people have never had that experience and yet they are incredibly talented, powerful people who could be playing in that way too. So how can we upgrade everyone? The CEO of Amex says constancy of value is in constancy of reinvention. So how do you scrub everyone into this new way of working and collaborating and making sure people have these resources so that they could?</p>
<p>I love the President's “My Brother's Keeper” initiative that he did. It really speaks to me personally because it’s not okay that one in three African-American boys in the United States are going into the criminal justice system at some point. What are we doing to make sure that those incredible colleagues of ours on the planet are getting included into this, and are getting to go to tech meet-ups and hackathons and all of that? And figure out what they want to do — what videos and stories and movies and apps and incredible laws or whatever do they want to make to put their impact down the road that we can include them in?&nbsp;</p>
<p>And in some ways, you know, doing PlanetOut, which is the gay community online, how do we include community, and work through discrimination? How are we working with young women around the globe, and young men and children, who face extreme issues? Malala [Yousafzai] and her father and family are amazing people to work with. How do I unlock the talent of Malala and her father and her family and those around her to do their thing? What will they bring in the world? By the way, her favorite subject is physics, nice little MIT tie in there.</p>
<p><strong>GARG:</strong> Keeping on personal theme, but switching gears a little bit, what do the first 60 minutes of your day look like when you wake up? Do you have daily or weekly routines that you credit success to?</p>
<p><strong>SMITH:</strong> It sort of changes, the first 60 minutes. We have two boys, so I am doing lots of stuff getting them up and going for school, checking email, getting coffee, running around sort of free-for-all, and then getting over here to the White House, which is just an amazing honor to be able to work here and work with this team.</p>
<p>A lot of people talk about some kind of work-life balance. I don’t think there is any balance, I think there’s a lot of juggling of things. People do it, and you can do it, too. For example, people just went through this whole MIT experience where there's no way you could do all the things that are assigned to you, you just have to sort of juggle it and do your best. You include some awesome social time with friends and some downtime and some athletic time and some taking care of yourself, being healthy and eating. You figure out how to get that done.</p>
<p>One of the key things is recognizing that being a part of the collaborative teams is incredibly important because no one person can do all the things. It is together, through working together really creatively that that happens. I was lucky, when I was in Media Lab Woodie Flowers was one of my advisors and so was Alan Kay. Alan had been one of the leaders early on. At that time, he was an imagineer at Disney and he had been at Xerox PARC early on. In fact, there is a drawing he made from the 70s of these kids sitting under a tree with basically holding tablet iPads. He was so visionary.</p>
<p>He always said he tried to focus on what were the things that he was good at and what was he not good at, and not get worried about the things that he was not good at—just find teammates who love doing that and then just get together and go. One time I got to have a conversation with Richard Branson and he sort of said the same thing. I think that’s pretty good advice.</p>
<p><strong>LUTHER:</strong> In the midst of all that juggling, what’s your favorite way of nerding out right now? Are you playing around with Arduinos or Google Glass?</p>
<p><strong>SMITH:</strong>&nbsp; Hey, I actually have like a Raspberry Pi [pulls out RasPi]. I’m actually taking these around because I try to get people to realize that here’s your phone [holds up phone], and there’s a little board inside here. It is just like Steve Jobs had. This is Homebrew Computer Club for now. The UK has given these to all kids. So I take them out around to kind of demonstrate like, things are made of something!</p>
<p>My main focus is again more around people these days, and just getting people moving. I’m having an amazing time working with the teams here. The government is filled with so much talent and so how do we use this scale to unlock that talent and get things moving on behalf of the American people and the world?</p>
<p><strong>LUTHER:</strong> I think we are definitely over time, but we want to thank you so much for spending some time with us and sharing your story with the other MIT graduate class of 2015.</p>
<p><strong>SMITH:</strong>&nbsp; It’s an honor that I have been asked to speak and I am really looking forward to meeting everyone and to that incredible day in June.</p>
<p><strong>GARG:</strong>&nbsp; We can't wait to see you on June 5th!</p>
Megan SmithCommencement, Community, Special events and guest speakers, Administration, Government, Technology and society, President L. Rafael Reif, Alumni/aeMelissa Nobles named dean of SHASShttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/melissa-nobles-dean-shass-0521
Political scientist and department head to lead School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.Thu, 21 May 2015 13:10:00 -0400Peter Dizikes | MIT News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/melissa-nobles-dean-shass-0521<p>Political scientist Melissa Nobles has been named the new dean of MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, effective July 1.</p>
<p>Nobles, the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and head of MIT’s Department of Political Science since 2013, is an accomplished scholar who has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1995. In addition to her role as department head, Nobles has served on a series of Institute-wide committees over the last decade.</p>
<p>“To tackle our global challenges — from water and food scarcity and climate change to digital learning, innovation, and human health — we need ambitious new answers from science and engineering. But because these challenges are rooted in culture, economics, and politics, meaningful solutions must reflect the wisdom of these domains, too,” MIT President L. Rafael Reif says. “Professor Nobles offers us a vision of the humanities, arts, and social sciences as the human stage on which our scientific and technical solutions have purpose and meaning. We are fortunate that she will bring to the deanship such an expansive worldview.”</p>
<p>Nobles says she believes research and teaching within SHASS are integral to all of MIT’s work.</p>
<p>“Upon being asked to serve as dean, I was thrilled and felt a great sense of honor and privilege to have the opportunity to lead such an important school at MIT,” Nobles says. “I think SHASS is so important because nearly all the rest of the endeavors at which the Institute so excels — science, engineering, business, and architecture — all exist within a social, political, cultural, and economic context, and that’s precisely where SHASS lives.”</p>
<p>She adds: “We have to be mindful of answering the question: To what ends are our technological and scientific endeavors being put? Many of the answers to those kinds of questions rest in the departments and courses in SHASS.”</p>
<p><strong>Mind, hand, and impact</strong></p>
<p>In her two years as department head in political science, Nobles has supported a variety of new faculty initiatives, including MIT’s Gov/Lab, which collaborates internationally with civil society organizations, their funders, and governments on projects aimed at improving civic participation and government accountability. Political science faculty and graduate students have recently established a Poverty, Violence, and Development Working Group to analyze this critical social problem. The department has also organized a Neuroscience and Social Conflict Initiative, along with the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the Cambridge-based organization Beyond Conflict, which has so far held three conferences highlighting research on cognition, social norms, and social conflict.</p>
<p>Last year, Nobles served on the search committee for the director of MIT’s new environment initiative (now the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative). She is the SHASS representative on MIT’s Gender Equity Committee, and has served on MIT’s committees on its undergraduate and graduate programs, among other administrative service.</p>
<p>Nobles envisions a SHASS that is “in keeping with MIT’s ethos of addressing the world’s great challenges,” and that frequently produces research applied to current-day problems. She adds that she expects that SHASS will remain committed to producing first-class scholarship.</p>
<p>“We cannot always know what’s going to be important in the future,” Nobles says. “Basic research continues with the understanding that this is also MIT’s mission. Those two things are not in competition. They are compatible. What interests us may also end up being really important — there’s a certain unpredictability to that, and I’m interested in fostering intellectual curiosity.”</p>
<p>Nobles’ appointment as the Kenan Sahin Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences was announced today by Provost Martin Schmidt in an email to the MIT community.</p>
<p>“She has distinguished herself as a scholar in MIT’s best problem-solving tradition, living out her department’s commitment to ‘rigor and relevance’ through pioneering research on global questions of racial and ethnic politics and justice,” Schmidt wrote. “In her two books … she draws illuminating comparisons across societies as disparate as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Brazil and the United States. This cross-cultural perspective also informs her teaching, where she takes particular pleasure in watching students from the U.S. and other parts of the world open each other’s minds to new points of view.”</p>
<p><strong>International in scope, comparative in method</strong></p>
<p>Nobles’ scholarship has won acclaim for its examination of issues of ethnic politics and retrospective social justice. Her approach has been international in scope and comparative in method, studying ethnic politics in the U.S., South America, and Oceania.</p>
<p>Nobles’ first book — “Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics” (Stanford University Press, 2000) — was a comparative study of census politics and racial categorization in the U.S. and Brazil from the 18th century through the end of the 20th century. The work won the W.E.B. Dubois Outstanding Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists in 2001.</p>
<p>Her second book — “The Politics of Official Apologies” (Cambridge University Press, 2008) — analyzed the political dynamics underlying official apologies for historical injustices, in the U.S. as well as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.</p>
<p>Along with the political scientist Jun-Hyeok Kwak, Nobles edited a collection of scholarly essays, “Inherited Responsibility and Historical Reconciliation in East Asia” (Routledge Press, 2013). Her work has also appeared in the <em>Annual Review of Political Science</em> and <em>Political Power and Social Theory</em>, among other publications.</p>
<p>Nobles’ current work includes compilation of a database of racial murders in the American South from the years 1930 to 1954; she has also been working on a book that will place issues of democratization and justice in the South in an international perspective.</p>
<p>Nobles received her BA in history from Brown University in 1985. She studied political science in graduate school, receiving her MA and PhD from Yale University in 1991 and 1995, respectively.</p>
<p>Nobles joined the MIT faculty as an assistant professor in 1995 and earned her first endowed chair, the Cecil and Ida Green Assistant Professor of Political Science, in 1997. She was promoted to associate professor of political science in 1999 and granted tenure in 2002. She became a full professor in 2009 and received her current endowed chair in 2010, before becoming department head.</p>
<p><strong>A lauded faculty</strong></p>
<p>Nobles was selected from a field of candidates evaluated by a faculty search committee. The search committee, chaired by Evan Ziporyn, the Kenin Sahin Distinguished Professor in MIT’s music program, comprised faculty from 11 different departments and programs within SHASS.</p>
<p>In all, SHASS has 21 departments, programs, centers, and consortia and 172 full-time faculty members. Its professors have won four Nobel Prizes, seven MacArthur Fellowships, four Pulitzer Prizes, 38 Guggenheim Fellowships, and four John Bates Clark Medals, among other distinctions.</p>
<p>Nobles succeeds Deborah K. Fitzgerald, a historian of technology who has served as SHASS dean since 2006.</p>
<p>Nobles praises Fitzgerald for “unifying our school” and creating “a big tent that we could all get under,” adding: “She made all of us feel like we were part of the school. … She was generous with her efforts and time.”</p>
Melissa NoblesSHASS, Political science, Administration, President L. Rafael Reif, Provost, Humanities, Social sciencesBolek Wyslouch named director of the Laboratory for Nuclear Sciencehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/bolek-wyslouch-named-director-laboratory-nuclear-science-0520
Wed, 20 May 2015 16:29:01 -0400Bendta Schroeder | School of Sciencehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/bolek-wyslouch-named-director-laboratory-nuclear-science-0520<p>Boleslaw "Bolek" Wyslouch, professor of physics, has been named the new director of the Laboratory of Nuclear Science (LNS), effective July 1.</p>
<p>“Bolek is a superb physicist who has a clear vision for the future of LNS and the strong support of its members,” Michael Sipser, dean of the School of Science, says. “I am delighted that he has agreed to be the next LNS director, and I look forward to working with him.”</p>
<p>Wyslouch will succeed Richard Milner, professor of physics. Milner has served in a leadership capacity at LNS since 1998, first as director of the Bates Linear Accelerator Center (a part of LNS) and then, beginning in 2006, as director of LNS.</p>
<p>“It has been an honor and privilege for me to serve in a senior administrative role in LNS for 17 years,” Milner says. “LNS is the model for carrying out large-scale, international, collaborative research at a university. Professor Wyslouch will be an excellent LNS director, and I am certain that LNS will continue to flourish under his leadership.”</p>
<p>The largest university-based program of its kind in the country, LNS was established in 1946 to provide support for basic research in the fields of nuclear and high-energy physics. “Scientists at the Laboratory are among the world leaders in particle and nuclear physics,” Wyslouch says. “We explore the fundamental properties of matter at accelerators, in space, and in underground laboratories. We develop theories that explain the subatomic world as well as the functioning of the universe as a whole. We build and operate state of the art particle detectors, conduct massive computations, and develop computational techniques.”</p>
<p>"I am very excited to be the new director of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science. I am very fortunate to take over the directorship from Richard Milner, who skillfully led the laboratory for the last nine years,” Wyslouch continued. “Recent construction and upgrades of accelerators, the commissioning of new detectors, and the development of new observational techniques around the world are opening up exciting research opportunities. I am looking forward to supporting LNS faculty, research scientists, postdocs, and students on the road to new discoveries in fundamental physics."</p>
<p>Wyslouch has significant experience in research and administrative leadership. Since 2013, he has served as the head of the Nuclear and Particle Physics Division of the Department of Physics. In addition, he is one of the founders and leaders of the heavy ion program in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.</p>
<p>Wyslouch studies extremely hot and dense states of nuclear matter, focusing on the very energetic collisions of heavy ions. The earliest runs of the LHC showed that hot plasma strongly suppressed production of high-energy jets, redistributing the jet energy among slow particles. Wyslouch’s CMS group further discovered surprisingly strong collective effects in ion-ion collisions, as well as in proton-proton and proton-ion collisions.</p>
<p>Before joining CMS, Wyslouch conducted multiple high-energy and nuclear experiments at CERN and at the Brookhaven National Laboratory RHIC facility, and took a leadership role at Brookhaven in creating PHOBOS, a project designed to create and study a quark-gluon plasma.</p>
<p>After completing his undergraduate work in physics at the University of Warsaw in 1981, Wyslouch began his association with MIT as a doctoral student, earning a PhD in physics in 1987. After postdoctoral appointments at LNS and CERN, he joined the MIT faculty in the Department of Physics in 1991.</p>
<p>Wyslouch was recognized for his contribution to education at MIT with a 2004 William W. Buechner Teaching Prize. He was elected as a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2013.</p>
Bolek WyslouchLaboratory for Nuclear Science, Faculty, School of Science, Physics, Administration, Nuclear science and engineeringRichard Lester named associate provost for international activitieshttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/richard-lester-associate-provost-international-activities-0514
In new role, longtime NSE professor will assume responsibility for MIT’s major international efforts.Thu, 14 May 2015 14:00:00 -0400News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/richard-lester-associate-provost-international-activities-0514<p>Richard Lester, the Japan Steel Industry Professor and currently the head of MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE), has been named associate provost for international activities, effective July 1.</p>
<p>Provost Martin Schmidt announced Lester’s appointment today in an email to the MIT faculty.</p>
<p>“In his new role, Richard will advise the administration on all matters pertaining to the Institute’s major international activities,” Schmidt wrote. “He will have responsibility for the periodic review of our ongoing global efforts as well as for the assessment of proposed international initiatives.”</p>
<p>A member of the faculty since 1979, Lester will be MIT’s first associate provost for international activities. Last November, President L. Rafael Reif announced that Claude Canizares would step down as vice president, effective June 30, and that oversight for international engagements, which had been part of his portfolio, would shift to a new position within the Office of the Provost.</p>
<p>“By many measures MIT is already a global university,” Lester says. “But what kind of a global university do we want to be? And how can we be a great global university in a way that strengthens our Cambridge campus as one of the world’s pre-eminent centers of scientific discovery and technological innovation? I am looking forward immensely to working on these very important questions for MIT with our faculty and with everyone who cares about the future of this great institution.”</p>
<p>In Lester’s six years as head of NSE, the department has seen rapid rebuilding and renewal. As the School of Engineering begins a search for his successor as department head, Lester will continue in that role until Sept. 1.</p>
<p>Lester is the faculty chair and founding director of the <a href="http://web.mit.edu/ipc/">Industrial Performance Center</a>. His research focuses on local, regional, and national systems of innovation, with a particular focus on the energy and manufacturing sectors. He has led several major studies of competitiveness and innovation performance commissioned by governments and industrial groups around the world.</p>
<p>Lester obtained his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Imperial College and earned his PhD in nuclear engineering from MIT in 1979. He serves as an advisor to corporations, governments, foundations, and nonprofit groups, and is chair of the National Academies’ Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy.</p>
<p>Schmidt noted in his letter that in his new capacity, Lester will assume the role of co-chair, with Philip Khoury, associate provost and Ford International Professor, of the International Advisory Committee, as well as co-sponsor, with Executive Vice President and Treasurer Israel Ruiz, of the International Coordinating Committee.</p>
Richard LesterSchool of Engineering, Nuclear science and engineering, Administration, Provost, Global, International relationsKendall Square: A global center for innovation grows alongside MIThttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/kendall-square-global-center-innovation-grows-alongside-mit-0507
Once lined with old factories and abandoned buildings, Kendall Square is now a global center for innovation. Thu, 07 May 2015 17:48:01 -0400Liz Karagianis | MIT Spectrumhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/kendall-square-global-center-innovation-grows-alongside-mit-0507<p>Kendall Square in the 1970s was a mass of old factories, abandoned buildings, vacant lots, and chain-link fences,&nbsp;says Institute Professor Phillip Sharp, “and if you were wise, you didn’t walk around by yourself at 10 o’clock at night.”</p>
<p>But now this East Cambridge neighborhood is an innovation powerhouse, a hotbed of new ideas, new technology, and know-how, and it is teeming at midday with technologists and entrepreneurs. Today, Kendall Square hosts 150 high-tech companies, including some of the most celebrated life science, technology, and pharmaceutical companies on Earth, such as Biogen Idec, Genzyme, Novartis, Akamai, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.</p>
<p>President John F. Kennedy wanted to build NASA’s Electronics Research Center in Kendall Square. It opened in 1964 but closed five years later because of budget cuts. “That left this big void, so MIT then partnered with the City of Cambridge to advance plans to revitalize Kendall Square,” says Provost Martin Schmidt, co-chair of the MIT Building Committee, which now has big plans to further develop this booming innovation cluster.</p>
<p>“Kendall Square is the epicenter, but the reach is all around the edge of campus,”&nbsp;Schmidt says, adding that with the input of hundreds, <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/kendall-square-initiative-next-steps-0507" target="_blank">a plan</a> has been designed to create “a gateway” and “a sense of destination” in Kendall Square, so that when you rise up out of the subway, it will be visibly clear that you’ve entered the MIT campus.</p>
<p>Soon to come, he says, will be academic space, graduate dormitories, a childcare center, and the new home of the MIT&nbsp;Museum. Also slated over the next decade is innovation space, high-rise housing, retail and commercial space, all with landscaping and underground parking. “We see it as an opportunity to further enliven the area. It will become a place to go, rather than a place just to walk through,” says Schmidt, who has co-founded or co-invented the core technology for six start-up companies.</p>
<p>“Every state in the country wants an innovation center like Kendall Square, so we’ve been lucky that we were first,” says Sharp, who launched Biogen here in 1981,&nbsp;<a href="http://spectrum.mit.edu/issue/2015-spring/discovery-research-is-reinventing-the-world/" target="_blank">triggering the biotechnology industry</a>&nbsp;as well as the renaissance of Kendall Square.</p>
<p>“Kendall Square is the densest innovation cluster in the world,” Schmidt says. “What makes it unique is in a few square miles, you have an enormous concentration of startups, high-tech companies, and venture capital firms. What makes Kendall so interesting to watch is its proximity to the surge of talent at MIT, the universities, and the hospitals,” he says. “You have to assume that that’s going to translate to significant advantage in terms of all the serendipitous interactions that are going to occur.”</p>
<p>Sharp adds that MIT has long been expert at translating basic research into the marketplace. “We’re not here just to gain new knowledge; we’re here to transfer that new knowledge into useful things,” he says. “It’s what made Kendall Square Kendall Square.”</p>
Kendall Square, CambridgeKendall Square, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E), Startups, Administration, cambridge, Cambridge, Boston and region, Provost, CommunityKendall Square Initiative ready to take next stepshttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/kendall-square-initiative-next-steps-0507
Proposed building designs presented at two community meetings.Thu, 07 May 2015 10:30:00 -0400News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/kendall-square-initiative-next-steps-0507<p>Nearly 200 people attended two community meetings yesterday on MIT’s Kendall Square Initiative. These meetings were a follow-up to an April <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/letter-regarding-mits-kendall-square-and-east-campus-design-process">update to the MIT community</a> from Provost Martin Schmidt, Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart, and Executive Vice President and Treasurer Israel Ruiz regarding plans in the East Campus/Kendall Square area, and the launch of a study process for the West Campus area.</p>
<p>The two identical meetings —&nbsp;one held at noon at the Stratton Student Center and another held at 6 p.m. at the Kendall Square Marriott —&nbsp;included a <a href="http://kendallsquare.mit.edu/sites/default/files/documents/KSI_Update_2015-0506.pdf">presentation</a> of the proposed designs for six buildings to be developed on MIT-owned parking lots in the East Campus/Kendall Square area. Schmidt, Ruiz, Associate Provost Karen Gleason, Managing Director of Real Estate Steve Marsh, and several of the Initiative’s architects took turns presenting the overall development plan, including the building designs, open space framework, retail strategy, and sustainability approach.</p>
<p>MIT officials summarized the overarching priorities for the Kendall Square Initiative, including advancing Kendall Square as a destination with diverse retail and active open spaces; as a residential center with mixed-income market housing and graduate student housing; and as an innovation and academic district that will serve to accelerate the Institute’s mission.</p>
<p>They also described the next step for the development, which is the “Article 19” project review process with the City of Cambridge Planning Board. In introducing the presentation, Ruiz thanked those gathered for their role in shaping the Initiative. “It is truly a better project because of your participation and input,” he said.</p>
<p>The Kendall Square Initiative features:</p>
<ul>
<li>six buildings, including three for research and development, two for housing, and one for retail and office space;</li>
<li>500 net new housing units that will bring added vitality to Kendall Square;</li>
<li>more than 100,000 square feet of new and repositioned ground-floor retail;</li>
<li>nearly three acres of new and repurposed connected open spaces;</li>
<li>the preservation and integration of three historically significant buildings; and</li>
<li>the retention of 800,000 square feet of existing capacity for future academic use.</li>
</ul>
<p>The primarily positive — and sometimes enthusiastic — comments and questions raised by the MIT and Cambridge attendees at the meetings covered a wide range of topics, including transportation, housing, parking, open space, food trucks, building design, retail amenities such as a market and drugstore, bicycle and pedestrian access, connections to the Charles River, and the timing and proposed phasing of the development.</p>
<p>One of the most frequently raised topics throughout the public engagement process has related to the creation of housing. MIT has always planned to include housing at the One Broadway parcel, but as a result of feedback from both the MIT and Cambridge communities, the housing at that site has increased significantly — to about 290 units of mixed-income market housing, including 50 units designated as affordable housing.</p>
<p>Also in response to both MIT and Cambridge input, the Institute decided to add plans for a new residence hall for graduate students in the heart of Kendall Square. This facility will replace the 201 graduate housing units currently located in Eastgate, and will add approximately 270 more, for a total of approximately 470 units.</p>
<p>In describing the new graduate student housing, Schmidt cited the thorough work of the Graduate Student Housing Working Group, led by former chancellor Phillip Clay, the Class of 1922 Professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. “The working group carried out a very careful <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/letter-regarding-final-report-graduate-student-housing">review</a> of issues related to housing our graduate student population, resulting in a recommendation for new accommodations for 500 to 600 graduate students to address current unmet need,” Schmidt said. “We’re pleased to be able to implement half of that number in this development, and will look to other sections of the campus to site the other half.”</p>
<p>Taken together, the new building at One Broadway and the new graduate residence hall will provide over 500 net new housing units in Kendall Square.</p>
<p>Building on the careful analyses and recommendations from <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/letter-east-campus-kendall-square">several MIT studies</a> related to Kendall Square, East Campus, and graduate housing, MIT moved ahead — with faculty leadership from the School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) — to engage with <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/schmidt-ruiz-letter-design-firm-selection-0923">five teams of architects</a> to design the new buildings. As a result, the designs are quite varied, reflecting the diverse and exciting nature of the Kendall Square innovation district.</p>
<p>Marsh noted the vital role played by the former and current SA+P deans, Adele Naude Santos and Hashim Sarkis, and the former and current heads of the Department of Architecture, Nader Tehrani and J. Meejin Yoon. “Having all four of these faculty leaders involved in the initiative has ensured a seamless knitting together of the varying elements of the project,” Marsh said.</p>
<p>Another topic that has been of great interest to the broader community has been the function and feel of the proposed open space. Extensive input has led to a plan that recaptures approximately 3 acres of existing parking lots south of Main Street to create a connected series of open spaces that will reflect the community’s desire for active programming and recreation.</p>
<p>“We want everyone to feel not only welcome, but warmly invited to participate in the offerings of this area,” Marsh said. The plan also enables increased activation of Main Street and Broad Canal Way through new and enhanced retail.</p>
<p>The City of Cambridge <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2013/kendall-square-zoning-petition-approved-0409">approved MIT’s zoning</a> for the land it owns in Kendall Square in April 2013 after an extensive five-year engagement process. The approved zoning sets physical parameters for the buildings — including design requirements, heights, setbacks, and density — and establishes minimum thresholds for affordable housing, retail, open space, and innovation space.</p>
<p>The zoning process also resulted in MIT’s commitment to a range of community benefits, including contributions to Cambridge-based nonprofits; a feasibility study regarding the use of MIT’s property adjacent to the existing Grand Junction railroad tracks, parallel to Vassar Street, as a community path; the transfer of an MIT-owned parcel located in Area IV to the City of Cambridge; and the establishment of an open space and retail advisory committee, among several other programs.</p>
<p>More information about the project can be found on the <a href="http://kendallsquare.mit.edu/">Kendall Square Initiative website</a>. Questions, comments, and ideas can be sent to <a href="mailto:kendallsquare@mit.edu">kendallsquare@mit.edu</a>.</p>
A rendering of the proposed Site 5, which will include the MIT Museum, research and development facilities, and retail stores. Kendall Square, Design, Administration, Cambridge, Boston and region, Campus buildings and architecture, Community, Facilities, Provost, Residential life, Architecture, Real estate, School of Architecture and PlanningSlideshow: Thousands gather for dedication of Collier Memorialhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/collier-memorial-dedication-0429
Ceremony marks official opening of granite structure in honor of MIT officer slain in 2013.Wed, 29 Apr 2015 16:15:00 -0400News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/collier-memorial-dedication-0429<p>Thousands of members of the MIT community gathered today for the dedication of the Institute’s memorial to Sean Collier, the MIT police officer who was killed in the line of duty two years ago this month.</p>
<p>Attendees heard remarks from Executive Vice President and Treasurer Israel Ruiz; President L. Rafael Reif; Cambridge Mayor David Maher; John DiFava, director of campus services and chief of police; and Professor J. Meejin Yoon, head of the Department of Architecture, who designed the memorial.</p>
<p>Situated on the site where Collier was shot and killed on April 18, 2013, the Collier Memorial is composed of 32 blocks of granite that form a five-way stone vault. Inspired by the shape of an open hand, the vault is supported by five radial walls.</p>
<p>The smooth, curved vault contains the inscription: “In the line of duty, Sean Collier, April 18, 2013.” Carved into a south-facing wall on one of the radial arms is a quote from a eulogy delivered by Rob Rogers, Collier’s brother, at an MIT memorial service on April 24, 2013: “Live long like he would. Big hearts, big smiles, big service, all love.”</p>
<p>In the program for today’s event, Yoon described the structure as follows: “The vaulted design of the Sean Collier Memorial embodies structural principles in its material configuration and symbolizes generosity as service. This didactic visualization of forces is consistent with MIT’s ethos of openness and transparency, while the idea that all five walls are needed to achieve a stable form is symbolic of a community coalescing to commemorate a loss. The permanent Collier Memorial will offer our community the opportunity to remember Officer Collier’s life and to honor his service as it reminds us of our values: openness in the face of threat, unity through diversity, and strength through community.”</p>
Situated on the site where Officer Sean Collier was killed on April 18, 2013, the Collier Memorial is composed of 32 blocks of granite that form a five-way stone vault. The smooth, curved vault contains the inscription: “In the line of duty, Sean Collier, April 18, 2013.”Sean Collier, Campus buildings and architecture, Architecture, Civil and environmental engineering, School of Architecture and Planning, School of Engineering, Administration, Community, FacilitiesNew memorial a labor of lovehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/sean-collier-memorial-design-0428
Architects and engineers detail their novel design for MIT’s Collier Memorial.Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:30:00 -0400Peter Dizikes | MIT News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/sean-collier-memorial-design-0428<p>When MIT’s new memorial to Sean Collier is unveiled on Wednesday, the Institute community will get its first close look at a remarkable new structure: 32 massive pieces of polished granite in the form of five radial walls and arches, converging at a keystone above an open space.</p>
<p>In a shape akin to an open hand, the memorial represents the many connections Collier built with the MIT community, as well as the sense of service he brought to his job. In person, the 190-ton memorial has a powerful physical presence — but also a sinuous form that yields a sense of light and openness.</p>
<p>Behind the memorial is a story of MIT administrators and faculty determined to create a fitting memorial for Collier, the MIT police officer killed in the line of duty on April 18, 2013.</p>
<p>The central contributors include an MIT architect who created the unique design; an MIT engineer and architectural historian who, along with his students, made sure the design would work; and a construction crew, featuring Collier’s brother as a project manager, that used exacting techniques to build the novel structure despite this winter’s record-setting snows.</p>
<p>All those elements were highlighted in an MIT event on Monday night that revealed new details of the memorial’s construction.</p>
<p>The Collier Memorial is “a place where we can all pause to reflect upon Sean and his service,” said J. Meejin Yoon, the professor of architecture, and head of the Department of Architecture, who designed the memorial, speaking to an audience of about 300 people in Room 10-250.</p>
<p>Seeing the memorial first stand without scaffolding, several weeks ago, was “a very special moment for all of us,” said John Ochsendorf, the Class of 1942 Professor in MIT’s departments of Architecture and Civil and Environmental Engineering, who closely analyzed the structure’s stability.</p>
<p>The Monday evening event also had an emotional side, with remarks by Rob Rogers, one of Collier’s brothers, who helped manage the memorial’s construction for Boston-based Suffolk Construction.</p>
<p>“In the last two years, there’s been hard times, hard days,” said Rogers, who acknowledged that he was hesitant, at first, about working on the project — but then soon decided to throw himself into it.</p>
<p>In looking at all the offices and spaces around MIT with pictures and remembrances of Collier, Rogers recalled, “I realized that he’s still here. … He wasn’t just a cop to you. He was your friend.”</p>
<p>Rogers also said that seeing the memorial finished was both moving and, despite the sadness involved, an exciting moment for him.</p>
<p>“I’m so proud of what we’ve done,” Rogers told the audience on Monday. “This has been the best project I’ve ever done.” He added: “Thank you for letting me spend some more time with Sean.”</p>
<p><strong>Finding a worthy design</strong></p>
<p>When MIT’s leaders decided to build a memorial to Collier, they wanted to create a site “that would be worthy of MIT, and would also bring the community together,” as Hashim Sarkis, dean of the School of Architecture and Planning, said Monday night.</p>
<p>MIT’s Sean Collier Permanent Memorial Committee, co-chaired by Provost Martin Schmidt and John DiFava, director of facilities operations and security, soon assembled a team of collaborators, including Yoon as the architect.</p>
<p>Yoon considered many concepts for the design, but a breakthrough occurred after the committee provided her a dossier of suggestions from the community about potential forms for the memorial, consisting of over 100 “very thoughtful ideas,” many from people who knew Collier.</p>
<p>“That’s how I learned about Sean’s life,” Yoon said. Eventually the form took shape: five radial walls that could be interpreted as a hand, but that would also create separate spaces. The empty space in the middle is inspired by the shape of stones often found in memorial cairns — a reference to Collier's love of the outdoors, since he had become an active member of MIT’s Outing Club, a hiking group.</p>
<p>“That cairn would be present as an absence,” explained Yoon, who added, “The notion of the open hand is one of service and generosity.”</p>
<p>Beyond the shape of the memorial, Yoon wanted it built from stone — as opposed to, say, steel or concrete — to symbolize Collier’s connectedness with MIT. However, that created a new challenge: How could a massive set of stones, in the shape of a five-fingered arch, reinforce each other and stand firmly in place?</p>
<p><strong>Enter the engineers</strong></p>
<p>Few experts are in a position to assess whether a bold new architectural design made from stone will work. But one of them — Ochsendorf — works more or less down the hall from Yoon.</p>
<p>Ochsendorf is both a trained engineer and an architectural historian whose work has often focused on the ways in which older buildings have incorporated engineering principles into their forms — from Roman arches to the famous King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, England.</p>
<p>“We had been working for about 15 years for a project like this,” Ochsendorf said on Monday.</p>
<p>Suddenly, all of Ochsendorf’s years of study and analysis around the world could be applied to a new structure on the MIT campus. After all, as Ochsendorf said last evening, “You can’t just invent any form and have it stand up.” &nbsp;</p>
<p>In particular, to see whether an arch will hold, Ochsendorf said, consider a dictum from the 17th-century English scientist Robert Hooke: “As hangs the flexible line, so but inverted will stand the rigid arch.” That is, imagine you are holding both ends of a small piece of string, while letting the middle drop. That shape — if flipped up into an arch — will be optimal for building.</p>
<p>Ochsendorf and several MIT students soon got to work analyzing Yoon’s design, seeing whether each “finger” of the structure would hold — no trivial question, since the amount of force in each ranges from 20,000 to 50,000 pounds. Using computer simulations and a fabricated model, and testing the design even in simulated earthquakes much stronger than anything New England has ever experienced, Ochsendorf’s group came to its conclusion: The design would work.</p>
<p><strong>Building it: “Then the snow arrived”</strong></p>
<p>By that point, the Collier Memorial had seen significant progress. But much of the project’s hardest work still lay ahead — starting with finding the right quality of stone. No one can just pick up a phone and order 32 large pieces of granite cut to precise, irregular shapes.</p>
<p>The team settled on a granite quarry in Virginia as its source of stone, and Yoon started leading trips every three weeks to see if the pieces of granite being produced could be cut to size. Eventually, they found 32 suitable pieces, then had them shipped to the Quarra Stone Company in Madison, Wisconsin, for specialized, millimeter-level precision cutting, by hand and by robot. The size and shape of some stones proved so demanding that Quarra worked on some for a week straight, 24 hours a day.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>By October, construction on the memorial had started, between MIT’s Stata Center and Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. The team began building the Collier Memorial from the center out, Ochsendorf noted — that is, they started with the keystone and the ringstones surrounding it, to get the best possible fit on this crucial part of the structure. Using scaffolding, the crew began assembling the memorial, and by January, had made good progress.</p>
<p>“Then the snow arrived,” Ochsendorf said.</p>
<p>Starting in late January, the area received all-time record snowfall — 110.3 inches for the winter in Boston — that complicated matters. The team persevered, and by the spring, was ready for the most important moment of the entire process: the removal of the scaffolding.</p>
<p>Given the weight of the stones involved, the crew used an abundance of caution, lowering the scaffolding by tiny increments, over an eight-hour span, while continuously checking the weight placed on a series of 10,000-pound scales on the ground: If the weight diminished, it meant the memorial was standing on its own, and not reliant on the scaffolding — which is what happened. Ochsendorf and the other engineers had estimated that the keystone could settle 5 to 15 millimeters lower without scaffolding; it settled 6 millimeters, close to the optimal amount.</p>
<p><strong>A place to reflect</strong></p>
<p>The opening ceremony for the memorial, tomorrow at noon, will, in a sense, bring to a close the long process of designing and building the memorial.</p>
<p>Besides the MIT committee, Yoon, and Ochsendorf, that process included a range of partners: the engineering firms Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering, McPhail Associates, Nitsch Engineering, and AHA Consulting Engineers; the landscape architects Richard Burck Associates; the lighting designer, Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design; and Suffolk Construction, as construction managers.</p>
<p>But Wednesday’s ceremony is also the opening of a new public place at MIT.</p>
<p>“As you’re under that space, you can pause to reflect,” said Yoon, who hopes it will be both an “everyday site for the MIT community” and a way to “help us remember Sean.”</p>
<p>Building the memorial was not easy, but as Rogers made clear on Monday night, it turned into a labor of love for a whole group of people hoping to remember Sean Collier and his values.</p>
<p>“It shows what you can do when you put your mind to something,” Rogers said.</p>
MIT's Collier Memorial Sean Collier, Campus buildings and architecture, Architecture, Civil and environmental engineering, School of Architecture and Planning, School of Engineering, Administration, Community, FacilitiesLetter regarding MIT&#039;s progress in minimizing sexual assault on campushttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/letter-regarding-mits-progress-minimizing-sexual-assault-campus
Tue, 21 Apr 2015 10:00:00 -0400News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/letter-regarding-mits-progress-minimizing-sexual-assault-campus<p><em>The following email was sent April 17 to the MIT community by Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart</em>.</p>
<p>Dear members of the MIT Community,</p>
<p>Last fall, when President Reif and I shared the results of a student survey about unwanted sexual behavior on our campus, we announced a range of actions to address the problems the survey revealed.</p>
<p>Today, I write to ask for your input on one of those actions -- recommended changes to the processes of our Committee on Discipline (COD) -- and to give you an update on our progress overall, as we work to encourage a positive campus culture of sexual respect.</p>
<p><strong>1. REVISED PROCESSES for the COMMITTEE on DISCIPLINE</strong><br />
In our broad effort to enhance the way MIT addresses sexual assault and misconduct, I asked Professor Munther Dahleh, former COD chair, to lead a task force that would examine the COD's practices and procedures, and identify any necessary changes, with the goal of ensuring that our process for pursuing a complaint of sexual misconduct is streamlined, approachable, fair, prompt and consistent.</p>
<p>The task force -- composed of students, staff, faculty and representatives of the COD -- carefully reviewed the COD's procedures, the results of the student survey, the relevant legal framework, guidelines from the Office of Civil Rights, processes at peer institutions and MIT's existing policies, and has now recommended improvements to the way the COD handles student sexual misconduct cases.</p>
<p>I believe these recommendations will enhance the COD's ability to handle these cases effectively and ensure a fair process for all students involved by:</p>
<p>Assigning sexual misconduct cases to a subset of COD members who have received extensive specialized training;<br />
Increasing the responsibility of professional in-house Title IX investigators in investigating allegations and determining responsibility;<br />
Streamlining the process, to allow for faster resolution with no loss of deliberation;<br />
Ceasing to have student COD members serve on sexual misconduct panels (because students on the task force told us that having their peers hear such cases presented a significant barrier to coming forward with a complaint); and<br />
Providing COD members with guidelines to ensure consistency in what sanctions students may face after having been found responsible for sexual misconduct.</p>
<p><strong>Seeking Your Feedback</strong><br />
These recommendations will reshape a process with important consequences for individual students and COD members, and for MIT as a whole, so as we move forward, it's essential to have the confidence of the community.</p>
<p>In that spirit, I invite you to review the task force summary and then:</p>
<p>Add your voice to the conversation by attending a town hall meeting where Professor Dahleh will present the task force recommendations and take your questions: May 11, 5-6:30 in 10-250.<br />
You may also submit comments via email (cod-taskforce@mit.edu) by May 18.</p>
<p><strong>Next Steps</strong><br />
The task force will review this community input and present me with final recommendations, we hope by the end of this term. We aim to have new processes in place by September.</p>
<p>Please join me in thanking Professor Dahleh and all the members of the task force (listed at the end of this letter), for charting our path to a disciplinary process around sexual assault and misconduct that I believe will be a model of clarity and fairness.</p>
<p><strong>2. UPDATE on FURTHER PROGRESS</strong><br />
These COD improvements will make a difference. But the disciplinary process touches only a tiny fraction of students. To achieve the community we want, we also need to focus on those elements that have relevance for everyone: from education and intervention, to personal and institutional support for those who experience unwanted sexual behavior.</p>
<p>Since announcing the campus survey results last fall, we have -- with tremendous insight and practical help from many individual students and student groups -- made real progress towards the kind of community we all desire:</p>
<ul>
<li>We have greatly increased the visibility of sexual assault as a campus issue, encouraged students to discuss it and given them venues to do so, from the conference we sponsored in February to the many film screenings, plays and other April events of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.</li>
<li>We are developing an educational campaign to help correct misconceptions students may hold about sexual assault and consent, and we have improved the training we provide for students on bystander intervention, campus resources and reporting options. We have increased the number of students who are educated on these subjects, and greatly increased the number of people, especially men, who feel responsible to help prevent sexual assault and misconduct.</li>
<li>We have targeted education for groups, such as graduate students, that might not be getting enough information about campus resources, and we launched trainings tailored for undergraduate students beyond the freshman year. We have also identified and will reach out to groups that need a special focus, from the LGBTQ community to the FSILGs. And we have enhanced "party-safe" training in our dorms and FSILGs to include a section on preventing sexual assault.</li>
<li>We have increased support for students who have experienced sexual assault, adding four staff members in Violence Prevention and Response and creating a new Title IX Office with two new staff. We have created a Sexual Assault Response Team to coordinate the efforts of the Division of Student Life, MIT Medical, MIT Police and the Title IX Office. And in what we believe is a positive sign, we have seen an increase in students who have come forward to report their experiences with unwanted sexual behavior.</li>
<li>We also continue to learn from the survey responses, and we are sharing these lessons with groups that ask for information specific to them.</li>
<li>Our Sexual Assault Education and Prevention Task Force has released a report that provides a strategic roadmap, detailed action steps and a plan for implementing further improvements. (With gratitude, I list the task force members at the end of this letter.)</li>
<li>I have also asked a new committee to analyze the Institute's polices and procedures around sexual misconduct, intimate partner violence and stalking, to determine whether we can make them even more effective, and I expect a report on this by next fall.</li>
</ul>
<p>There is much to be proud of -- and still a lot to do. We can and will continue to improve our procedures and enhance administrative support. But we also need to shift our culture -- and that will take everyone.</p>
<p>I have learned a tremendous amount in this year, thanks to the direct, thoughtful, candid insights of hundreds of people across MIT. I remain eager for your perspective on how to make our community safer and more caring, for everyone who lives at, works at, or visits MIT.</p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>Cynthia Barnhart</p>
<p><u><strong>Members of the Task Force on COD Processes for Sexual Assault</strong></u></p>
<p><u>Faculty</u><br />
Munther Dahleh, Chair; Institute for Data, Systems, and Society; EECS<br />
Alex Byrne, Linguistics and Philosophy<br />
Suzanne Flynn, Linguistics and Philosophy<br />
Robert Redwine, Physics</p>
<p><u>Staff</u><br />
Don Camelio, Office of Community Development and Substance Abuse<br />
Mark DiVincenzo, Office of the General Counsel<br />
Leah Flynn Gallant, Student Activities Office<br />
Kevin Kraft, Office of Student Citizenship<br />
Kate McCarthy, MIT Medical -- Violence Prevention and Response<br />
Judith McGuire Robinson, Office of the Dean for Student Life<br />
Sarah Rankin, Title IX Office<br />
Blanche Staton, Office of the Dean for Graduate Education<br />
Jaren Wilcoxson, Office of the General Counsel</p>
<p><u>Students</u><br />
Yasmin Inam '15<br />
Morgan Moroi '16<br />
Michelle Tomasik, G</p>
<p><u><strong>Members of Education and Prevention Task Force: Sexual Misconduct, Intimate Partner Violence, and Stalking ("Gender-Based Violence")</strong></u></p>
<p><u>Faculty &amp; Staff</u><br />
Kate McCarthy, Co-Chair; Program Director, Violence Prevention and Response, MIT Medical<br />
Sarah Rankin, Co-Chair; Institute Title IX Coordinator, Office of the Provost<br />
Kelley Adams, Program Manager, Violence Prevention &amp; Response<br />
Nina Davis-Millis, Random Hall Housemaster<br />
Chacha Durazo '14, Title IX Office Assistant<br />
Leah Flynn Gallant, Assistant Dean/Director for Student Leadership and Engagement<br />
Josh Gonzalez, Area Director, Simmons Hall<br />
Steven Hall, Professor and Associate Housemaster<br />
Raquel Irons, Human Resources Officer<br />
Jason McKnight, Assistant Dean, ODGE<br />
Jacob Oppenheimer, Assistant Director, FSILG<br />
David Randall, Associate Dean, Student Support Services<br />
Judy Robinson, Senior Associate Dean for Student Life<br />
Edward Schiappa, Professor, Head of Comparative Media Studies/Writing<br />
Julie Shah, Professor and Associate Housemaster<br />
Julie Soriero, Dept. Head Athletics/ Associate Professor</p>
<p><u>Students</u><br />
Charlie Andrews '17<br />
Margo Dawes, G<br />
Chrysonthia Horne '15<br />
Leyla Isik, G<br />
Larkin Sayre '17<br />
Alex Toumar, G<br />
Nathan Varady '16<br />
Daniel Wang '15</p>
Students, Letters to the Community, Administration, President L. Rafael Reif, Campus services, Community, MIT Medical, Health, Student lifeTimothy F. Jamison appointed next head of the Department of Chemistryhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/jamison-appointed-chemistry-department-head-0416
Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:50:01 -0400Heather Williams | School of Sciencehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/jamison-appointed-chemistry-department-head-0416<p>Professor Timothy F. Jamison has been named the new head of the Department of Chemistry, effective July 1.</p>
<p>“I am honored and delighted to have the opportunity to serve chemistry, the School of Science, and MIT,” said Jamison, who was recommended by a selection committee led by former department head Timothy Swager, the John D. MacArthur Professor in the Department of Chemistry.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Michael Sipser, dean of the School of Science said, “I’m delighted that Tim Jamison has agreed to lead the chemistry department.&nbsp;Tim is an outstanding chemist who is deeply committed to the research and education missions of the department, as well as to the large community of its members. I look forward to working with him in his new role.”</p>
<p>During the past year, Jamison chaired a chemistry faculty committee to enhance the department’s activities at the intersection of community and collaboration.&nbsp;His efforts in this area were noted by the selection committee, which&nbsp;reported that Jamison’s candidacy had strong support among all groups in the department, including graduate students.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Jamison will succeed the current department head in chemistry, Sylvia Ceyer, the John C. Sheehan Professor of Chemistry, who has served since 2010.&nbsp;</p>
<p>"During the past five years, Sylvia has steered the department through a myriad of challenges from funding for basic research to the completion of the renovation of the chemistry space in Building 2,” Sipser&nbsp;said.&nbsp;“During this time, Sylvia has focused on the future of the department, hiring stellar new faculty members in all major fields of chemistry.&nbsp;I am grateful to her for her service to the chemistry department and the School of Science."</p>
<p>Jamison has received numerous honors and awards in recognition of his research and educational contributions, including the Council of Chemistry Research Collaboration Award;&nbsp;the Royal Society of Chemistry Merck Award;&nbsp;the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society;&nbsp;a&nbsp;National Science Foundation Career Award;&nbsp;the Amgen Young Investigator Award;&nbsp;the GlaxoSmithKline Scholar Award;&nbsp;and the School of Science Teaching Prize for Undergraduate Education.&nbsp;Jamison is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.&nbsp;He also serves as an associate editor of <em>Chemical Reviews</em>, on the international advisory board for the&nbsp;<em>Journal of Flow Chemistry,</em>&nbsp;and on the academic advisory board for&nbsp;<em>Advanced Synthesis and Catalysis</em>.</p>
<p>Jamison's primary research interest is in organic chemistry, specifically in the assembly of molecules. The development of new chemical reactions, catalysts, strategies of synthesis, and technologies for synthesis support this overarching aim. He is a co-principal investigator in the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing and has several active collaborations with colleagues in the School of Science and the School of Engineering.</p>
<p>Jamison joined the MIT faculty as an assistant professor in 1999.&nbsp;He was tenured in 2006 and promoted to full professor in 2009.&nbsp;Prior to joining MIT, he earned a BS in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley and then continued his studies as a Fulbright scholar at the Eidgenassische Technische Hochschule&nbsp;(ETH) in Zurich.&nbsp;Jamison carried out his doctoral research in chemistry at Harvard University under the supervision of Stuart L. Schrieber.&nbsp;His postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Eric N. Jacobsen, also at Harvard, was supported by a prestigious Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Fellowship.&nbsp;</p>
Professor Timothy F. Jamison, the new head of the Department of ChemistrySchool of Science, Chemistry, Faculty, MIT AdministrationBrian Forde joins the MIT Media Lab as director of digital currencyhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/brian-forde-media-lab-director-digital-currency-0415
Former White House senior advisor for mobile and data innovation to coordinate a broad research initiative focused on digital currenciesWed, 15 Apr 2015 13:00:00 -0400http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/brian-forde-media-lab-director-digital-currency-0415<p>Brian Forde, former White House senior advisor for mobile and data innovation, has joined the MIT Media Lab as director of digital currency. In this newly created position, Forde will work with researchers across the Institute and leading experts at other universities around the world in a new initiative to address some of the most critical challenges to creating a safe, stable, and secure digital currency.</p>
<p>“We are fortunate to have Brian join the Media Lab to help organize an important research agenda to get cryptocurrencies right,” Media Lab Director Joi Ito says. “Brian’s experience mainstreaming emerging technologies from the rural mountains of Nicaragua to the White House will be invaluable as he tackles the challenges of digital currency — one of the most promising emerging technologies for the next 10 years.”</p>
<p>Forde has spent more than a decade at the nexus of technology and public policy. At the White House he was responsible for determining how the Obama administration would leverage open data and emerging technologies to address the president's national priorities. In this role, his work included launching initiatives in climate change, natural disasters, and open data, and leading the revitalization of Detroit. He was also key to formulating the White House Tech Inclusion and TechHire initiatives, bringing together leaders from the technology community, large corporations, and advocacy groups to support the hiring and training of more women and minorities in technology. In recognition of this work, Forde was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.</p>
<p>"While at the White House, Brian led extraordinary initiatives to leverage the power of tech and innovation to make the future of America ever brighter," says Todd Park, White House advisor for technology. "From helping drive efforts to aid the revitalization of Detroit, to leveraging emerging technologies to support survivors during Hurricane Sandy, to breaking down barriers to a more diverse tech sector, the impact of Brian's work will continue to be felt by Americans for years to come."</p>
<p>Prior to joining the Obama administration, Forde brought advances in technology to Nicaragua, first as a Peace Corps volunteer and then as the co-­founder and CEO of Llamadas, S.A., one of the largest Internet phone service providers in that country.</p>
<p>“As a technologist, there’s no more exciting place to work than the MIT Media Lab,” Forde says. “The innovations that come out of the Media Lab have made a truly global impact. I look forward to working with the faculty and students and collaborating with developers, academics, entrepreneurs, governments, and nonprofits to help us get closer to a more robust and viable digital currency that could have tremendous benefits around the world.”</p>
<p>In launching this digital currency initiative, the Media Lab will work closely with faculty members, researchers,&nbsp;and students across the campus. More information is available at:&nbsp;<a href="https://medium.com/@medialab/launching-a-digital-currency-initiative-238fc678aba2">https://medium.com/@medialab/launching-a-digital-currency-initiative-238fc678aba2</a></p>
Brian Forde, former White House senior advisor for mobile and data innovation, joins the MIT Media Lab as director of digital currency. Media Lab, School of Architecture + Planning, AdministrationLetter regarding MIT&#039;s Kendall Square and east campus design processhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/letter-regarding-mits-kendall-square-and-east-campus-design-process
Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:00:00 -0400News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/letter-regarding-mits-kendall-square-and-east-campus-design-process<p><em>The following email was sent today to the MIT community by Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart, Provost Martin Schmidt, and Executive Vice President and Treasurer Israel Ruiz</em></p>
<p>To the members of the MIT community,</p>
<p>We write to tell you about exciting developments in MIT's Kendall Square and east campus design process, the planning study for west campus, and key steps we are taking regarding housing for our graduate and undergraduate students.</p>
<p>In pursuing these opportunities, we have benefited tremendously from five years of substantive input and analysis from the Cambridge and MIT communities. This has included an extensive public process, the Task Force on Community Engagement in 2030 Planning report, the Graduate Student Housing Working Group report, the East Campus/Kendall Gateway Urban Design Study with guidance of the East Campus Steering Committee, and key leadership from the School of Architecture and Planning. We will continue this path of engagement, ensuring significant faculty and student involvement in the working groups discussed below. We are also creating opportunities for the community to offer input to the process in the coming months.</p>
<p><strong>Next steps in the design process for Kendall/east campus</strong></p>
<p>In our September 23 communication, we described the process for selecting the Kendall/east campus architectural firms and announced the teams designated to design the individual buildings in the development area. Recognizing the value provided in the past, we have re-launched the East Campus Steering Committee and are continuing to rely on the expertise of School of Architecture and Planning faculty, as well as the vital input of student representatives. The newly-formed faculty Committee on Campus Planning has been briefed on the overall vision for the MIT campus, as well as the plans for Kendall/east campus, and we are committed to collaborating closely with the Committee to ensure that our shared visions for the campus are being realized.</p>
<p>The planning team has been focused on increasing the vitality of the Kendall/east campus area, by incorporating the diverse uses that have been recommended by all sectors of the MIT and Cambridge communities — housing, connected open spaces, retail, innovation space, childcare, and commercial space. The plan also identifies a prominent location for the MIT Museum and assures the incorporation of elements that reflect the essence of MIT in the gateway area.</p>
<p>The site plan below shows the proposed uses for the various parcels. Details regarding precise configurations, square footage, height, and number of housing units are still being examined as the design process proceeds, and will be shared at a community meeting when available. The plan will reflect the approved zoning for the district, and we believe this plan will serve to propel the area towards the objective of creating a vibrant mixed-used center with a captivating gateway to the MIT campus while preserving capacity for future academic uses.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="/sites/mit.edu.newsoffice/files/Kendall-east.png" style="width: 560px; height: 420px;" /></p>
<p>Thanks to the engagement of the Cambridge and MIT communities and the recommendations from the Graduate Student Housing Working Group, we now have an enhanced understanding and a robust plan for housing. Graduate student housing is designated at site O, and we are committed to completing new housing prior to replacing Eastgate Apartments. Site O has the capacity to replace all of the housing in Eastgate (201 units), and provide approximately 270 additional units of graduate housing. Residential housing is planned for Site L on the north side of Main Street, with a mix of affordable, innovation and market rate units. We believe that the presence of new housing together with significantly expanded retail spaces and improved public space will play an integral role in enhancing the liveliness of the area, and opportunities for additional graduate student housing are also being explored in the west campus area.</p>
<p>We look forward to sharing proposed building designs for Kendall/east campus at initial community meetings on May 6th (details below). Once we have had the opportunity to collect broad feedback, we will submit design schemes to the Cambridge Planning Board for its public hearing and review process.</p>
<p><strong>Unlocking the west campus potential</strong></p>
<p>Over the past few months we have initiated a formal planning process for the west and northwest areas of campus. The intent of the current study is to create a long–range development framework to accommodate future academic and residential uses on the MIT campus west of Massachusetts Avenue to complement east campus design efforts and the ongoing renewal of the main campus. We have also formed the West Campus Steering Committee to provide input as the west campus study team works to identify sites to accommodate potential new building initiatives, including undergraduate and graduate housing. Student representation on the Steering Committee is key to the west campus study.</p>
<p>Similar to the east campus plan, there is great interest in enhancing the west campus area in order to bring more vibrancy to MIT's main entrance. A temporary open space landscape will be created on the site of Bexley Hall, and a series of open spaces and walkways are being envisioned as part of the overall west campus design framework. We are working to understand development capacity and the urban design opportunities this capacity holds for the future of west campus.</p>
<p>A critical part of MIT's campus renewal program is the renovation of some of our undergraduate residence halls. We are working on strategies to sequence the renewal of the residences, and are considering opportunities to add to our housing capacity to enable renovation of the residence halls. In the context of the west campus planning study, we are evaluating the possibility of developing the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse as an exciting site for a mixed-use development. It could possibly include undergraduate residences, maker space on the first floor, collaborative spaces on the top level, and retail along Massachusetts Avenue and Vassar Street. The Metropolitan Warehouse Advisory Group, being led by the Offices of the Associate Provost for Space Planning and Campus Planning, also includes students and a wide cross-section of the MIT community.</p>
<p>We are also studying additional sites to accommodate new housing for graduate students and opportunities to renovate the graduate residences in west campus. We have accepted the recommendation of the Graduate Student Housing Working Group, which identified the need to provide housing to accommodate an additional 500-600 graduate students beyond what is currently available, and will work toward achieving this target over time with developments in both the east and west campus areas.</p>
<p><strong>Share your thoughts</strong></p>
<p>These two processes in the Kendall/east campus area and now in the west campus area have been shaped in great measure by the steady commitment and energetic involvement of many members of the MIT and Cambridge communities. Over these past few years, we have learned a great deal about what is important to various sectors of our community, and believe that the Kendall/east campus plan now holistically reflects our shared values. This learning process has led us to approach the west campus planning effort in a very similar fashion. As is our practice, there will be many opportunities for information sharing and the solicitation of input as we proceed.</p>
<p>In the meantime, we encourage you to share your thoughts on either of these processes by sending email to mit2030info@mit.edu. Thank you for your past and future involvement as we work to shape our campus to reflect MIT's spirit of innovation and collaboration.</p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>Cynthia Barnhart, Chancellor<br />
Martin A. Schmidt, Provost<br />
Israel Ruiz, Executive Vice-President and Treasurer</p>
<p><strong>Community Meetings</strong></p>
<p>Wednesday, May 6, 2015 / Noon – 2:00 PM<br />
MIT Student Center, W20 Room 491</p>
<p>Wednesday, May 6, 2015 / 6:00 – 8:00 PM<br />
Kendall Marriott at 50 Broadway<br />
&nbsp;</p>
Kendall Square, Campus development, Campus buildings and architecture, AdministrationLetter regarding the new Institute for Data, Systems, and Societyhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/letter-regarding-new-institute-data-systems-and-society
Wed, 08 Apr 2015 17:45:00 -0400News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/letter-regarding-new-institute-data-systems-and-society<p><em>The following email was sent today to the MIT community by Provost Martin Schmidt.</em></p>
<p>To the members of the MIT community,<br />
<br />
I am forwarding to you from the Deans of our five Schools an important update on the status of what we have been calling the New Entity, and which will now be called the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. Its first director, as has been previously announced, will be Professor Munther Dahleh. I'm thrilled by the fact that Munther will be leading this very exciting effort.<br />
<br />
I thank all involved in moving us to this point, and look forward to continued progress.<br />
<br />
You can also read an MIT News story about this announcement <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/mit-launches-idss-0408">here</a>.<br />
&nbsp;<br />
Best,</p>
<p>Marty Schmidt</p>
<p>==</p>
<p>To the members of the MIT community,<br />
&nbsp;<br />
In September 2014, Provost Schmidt announced MIT's plans to move forward with the recommendation to create a new entity that focuses on complex socio-technical systems, information and decision systems, and statistics. Since the creation of this entity constituted substantial reorganization of existing programs, President Reif in consultation with Professor Steven Hall, the chair of the faculty, tasked a committee to review the procedures followed in developing this recommendation. The committee recently concluded that an appropriate process was followed in reaching the decision on the reorganization. Today, we are pleased to announce the name of the new entity, and to provide an update on activities associated with it.<br />
&nbsp;<br />
The new entity will officially launch on July 1, 2015 and will be named the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). The name emphasizes the mission of this entity in addressing societal challenges using analytical tools from statistics and information and decision systems. The “institute” structure emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of IDSS spanning all five MIT Schools. Our excitement echoes the strong endorsement of this initiative by our faculty as stated in the Dahleh report: "As MIT continues to position itself as the hub for innovations that impact societies at large, it is becoming evident that the formation of this new Entity is critical to maintaining MIT's competitive edge in the broad field of mathematical, behavioral, and empirical sciences, and its impact on complex societal problems." We share this vision and believe that IDSS will create an excellent platform for research and education to address complex 21st century societal problems.<br />
&nbsp;<br />
Since the Provost's announcement in September, many faculty colleagues have been engaged in creating the foundations for IDSS, led by the Director-designate Professor Munther Dahleh. These activities include developing plans for new academic programs such as an undergraduate minor in statistics and a PhD program in engineering and social systems, searching for and hiring new faculty members, reorganizing research activities to better support work in these areas across the five Schools, and finally, launching an external partnership program of industry, government, and academia.<br />
&nbsp;<br />
We look forward to seeing IDSS interact with faculty members across MIT, and encourage interested faculty and staff to engage in the research and educational endeavors of this new and exciting organization. If you are interested in learning more, please reach out to one of us, or to Professor Dahleh.<br />
&nbsp;<br />
Sincerely,<br />
&nbsp;<br />
Deborah Fitzgerald, Kenan Sahin Dean of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences<br />
Hashim Sarkis, Dean of Architecture and Planning<br />
David Schmittlein, John C Head III Dean of the Sloan School of Manangement<br />
Michael Sipser, Dean of Science<br />
Ian Waitz, Dean of Engineering</p>
IDSS, Letters to the Community, Martin Schmidt, AdministrationDeans announce new Institute for Data, Systems, and Societyhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/mit-launches-idss-0408
MIT-wide effort aims to bring the power of data to the people.Wed, 08 Apr 2015 17:06:38 -0400News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/mit-launches-idss-0408<p>What do data scientists and social scientists have in common? Not nearly enough — yet. But now, MIT is creating a new institute that will bring together researchers working in the mathematical, behavioral, and empirical sciences to capitalize on their shared interest in tackling complex societal problems.</p>
<p>As announced today by the deans of all five of the Institute’s schools, MIT will officially launch the new Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS) on July 1. Offering a range of cross-disciplinary academic programs, including a new undergraduate minor in statistics, IDSS will be directed by Munther Dahleh, the William A. Coolidge Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.</p>
<p>While providing a structure and incentives for new alliances among researchers from across MIT, IDSS will become a central “home” for faculty from the Engineering Systems Division and a number of existing units, including the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems and the Sociotechnical Systems Research Center. IDSS will also launch a new MIT center on statistics.</p>
<p>“The Institute for Data, Systems, and Society will be a platform for some of the most exciting research and educational activity in complex systems at MIT,” Provost Martin Schmidt says. “Its formation is the result of intensive consultations among more than three dozen faculty members over many months. Those consultations have helped define many of the challenges that need to be addressed. I am deeply grateful to Munther for his leadership throughout this process.”</p>
<p>“This new institute allows MIT to bring all of its strengths to bear in exciting new directions,” says Ian A. Waitz, dean of the School of Engineering. “The modern proliferation of data and networks means that every problem, solution, or idea can be modeled, tested, and analyzed in ways and on scales that were unheard of 20, or even 10, years ago. This is leading to unprecedented challenges in areas like cybersecurity, and to spectacular opportunities for innovation, as in global online learning.”</p>
<p>“Engineering and science are always embedded in social realities, from deeply felt cultural traditions to building codes to political tensions,” says Deborah Fitzgerald, dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. “IDSS will allow the deep, original thinking about the physical universe that is done by our scientists and engineers to come together with the rigorous work of MIT’s great social scientists and economists.”</p>
<p>Students and researchers working with IDSS have a “nearly infinite pool of societal challenges they can begin to address together,” Dahleh says. In fields such as energy, transportation, social networks, health care, and financial systems, the explosion of data sources and networks is redefining not only social systems and infrastructure, but many of the disciplines that investigate them.</p>
<p>“In order to understand things like power outages and bank failures, you still need electrical engineers and economists — but today you also need anthropologists and data scientists, too,” Dahleh says. “Our ability to collect and aggregate data is already well beyond our ability to understand what it could tell us — and no single discipline, on its own, holds the keys to solving this problem.”</p>
<p><strong>New demand, new program</strong></p>
<p>Dahleh is building out the IDSS leadership team, which already begun to lay the foundations of its academic and research activities. One committee created has already completed the design of an interdisciplinary undergraduate minor in statistics.</p>
<p>A new PhD program anchored in both analytical tools and social sciences is also in the planning stages. The PhD will be problem-driven, requiring every student to gain in-depth expertise in a wide range of analytical tools; deep understanding of a coherent program in social science; and substantial knowledge in one application domain area.</p>
<p>“Bringing social-science dimensions to our strengths in science and engineering will have an enormous impact,” says Michael Sipser, dean of the School of Science. “Statistics has become the fastest growing college major in the country, and the IDSS will give us an opportunity to meet this demand in a distinctively MIT way.”</p>
<p>Also charged with hiring new faculty, the IDSS leadership has successfully recruited a top theoretical statistician to join MIT; they will continue to identify candidates in networked systems and connection science who have broad interests in engineering, economics, and social networks. They have also organized a statistics workshop, to be held May 14 and 15, to bring together thought leaders in statistics around exciting challenges created by the new era of data-rich applications. The speakers will offer technical presentations in mathematical statistics, machine learning, econometrics, and biostatistics.</p>
Munther DahlehData, Technology and society, IDSS, Statistics, Administration, School of Engineering, School of Architecture + Planning, SHASS, School of Science, Sloan School of Management, Graduate, postdoctoral, Education, teaching, academicsTo divest, or not to divest?http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/fossil-fuel-divestment-debate-0407
Debate to explore nuanced arguments for and against divestment from fossil fuels. Tue, 07 Apr 2015 10:00:00 -0400Jessica Fujimori | MIT News correspondenthttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/fossil-fuel-divestment-debate-0407<p>On Thursday, April 9, members of the MIT community will gather to hear arguments for and against the Institute divesting from the fossil-fuel industry.</p>
<p>The event — titled “Should MIT Divest? A Debate on Fossil Fuel Investment” — will be held from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in Kresge Auditorium, and will be <a href="http://webcast.amps.ms.mit.edu/spr2015/Climate_Change/09apr/">webcast live</a>. It is the fourth of a series of open-forum spring events that are part of the MIT Climate Change Conversation.</p>
<p>“Divestment has been one of the most strongly debated potential actions of academic institutions in recent times,” says Roman Stocker, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and chair of the Committee on the MIT Climate Change Conversation. “We decided: Why don’t we tackle it head-on? Why don’t we stage a debate, in the classical academic sense of the term, in which two teams explore all the possible arguments for and against divestment?”</p>
<p>Of Thursday’s event, Stocker adds, “We think this event will be intellectually exciting, morally engaging, and allow people to sample a spectrum of opinions at a very advanced level. More broadly, we see this as an opportunity to discuss how MIT can act to confront the most challenging problem of our time, climate change”.</p>
<p>The debaters in favor of fossil-fuel divestment will be John Sterman, the Jay W. Forrester Professor in Computer Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management; Naomi Oreskes, a professor of the history of science at Harvard University; and Don Gould, a trustee of Pitzer College and president and chief investment officer of the wealth-management firm Gould Asset Management.</p>
<p>Debating against fossil-fuel divestment will be Brad Hager, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor in Earth and Planetary Sciences and director of the MIT Earth Resources Laboratory; Frank Wolak, a professor of economics at Stanford University; and Timothy Smith, a director at the investment-management firm Walden Asset Management.</p>
<p>The debate will be moderated by Tony Cortese of the Intentional Endowments Network, a group that helps universities align their investments with their values and goals.</p>
<p>After the moderator opens the event, each debater will make his or her arguments, and will have the opportunity to respond to their peers’ arguments with rebuttals or support. Finally, the debaters will address questions from the community, which can be submitted via email to <a href="mailto:climatechange@mit.edu">climatechange@mit.edu</a> before and during the debate.</p>
<p>The organizers emphasize that the event is meant to educate, not to polarize. “The real goal is not to pick a winner or loser by the end of the evening; the real goal is that people who come in with a certain view of the argument will walk out with a much more nuanced view and reasons why divestment could or could not be a good idea,” Stocker says.</p>
<p>“This event, as well as the others in this spring series, is meant to catalyze the conversation about what MIT can do to confront climate change,” Stocker says. “We invite everyone in the MIT community to contribute to the conversation by attending the events, and sharing ideas through the Idea Bank or, in person, at the <a href="https://climatechange.mit.edu/events">listening tour</a> we are about to launch. With multiple dates where the Committee will be available at different locations across campus in April and May, we hope to hear from many students, faculty, and staff.”</p>
<p>The committee will incorporate feedback from these events into its final report to the MIT administration at the end of the academic year. The report will provide a short list of possible actions, in unranked order, with associated pros and cons. The committee report will be released to the MIT community for comment. The report, along with all additional input, will collectively provide a sense of the community’s point of view to MIT’s senior leadership, and will inform decision-making.</p>
<p>“It is by listening to the largest fraction of our community that we can best determine what MIT as a community should do,” Stocker adds.</p>
Sustainability, Environment, Administration, Special events and guest speakers, Climate change, Climate, Oil and gas, CommunityHow to talk about climate changehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/communication-challenges-climate-change-event-0330
Event to address communication challenges — and opportunities for MIT to help overcome them.Mon, 30 Mar 2015 12:00:00 -0400Jessica Fujimori | MIT News correspondenthttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/communication-challenges-climate-change-event-0330<p>On Tuesday, March 31, MIT students, faculty, staff, and administrators will gather for an interactive panel discussion about challenges in communication around climate change.</p>
<p>The event, titled “Getting Through on Global Warming: How to Rewire Climate Change Communication,” will be held from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in Room E51-115, and will be <a href="http://webcast.amps.ms.mit.edu/spr2015/Climate_Change/31mar/">webcast live</a>. It is the third of four open-forum spring events that are part of the <a href="http://climatechange.mit.edu">MIT Climate Change Conversation</a>, and the first to focus specifically on communication.</p>
<p>“It has become clear that a major bottleneck in the current inability to make progress in attacking climate change has to do with communication,” says Roman Stocker, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and chair of the Committee on the MIT Climate Change Conversation. “The&nbsp;input we obtained from the MIT community identified this topic as a priority and highlighted the need for better communication at multiple levels.”</p>
<p>Tuesday’s conversation will center on perceptions about climate change, how the subject is discussed, and how changes to the way it’s discussed could inspire action.</p>
<p>“There’s a consensus that this is a serious issue, that the climate change threat is significant, but there’s a lot of inattention, or apathy, or division around this topic in general,” says Anne Slinn, the executive director for research at the MIT Center for Global Change Science and a member of the Committee on the MIT Climate Change Conversation. “Really what we’re looking at is: What can MIT as an institution do? How can we advance the level of discussion around this topic, locally and nationwide?”</p>
<p>The event will feature a panel discussion followed by a discussion with the audience, wherein participants can ask questions of panelists and give input via email or text message.</p>
<p>Panelists at the Tuesday event will include MIT professors Kerry Emmanuel (Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences), Judy Layzer (Department of Urban Studies and Planning), Tom Levenson (Comparative Media Studies / Writing), and Drazen Prelec (MIT Sloan School of Management). Joining the conversation from outside the Institute are Chris Mooney, a journalist for who writes about global warming for the <em>Washington Post</em>, and Susan Hassol, director of the organization Climate Communication, which works with scientists and journalists to make climate science more accessible to the public. The discussion will be moderated by John Durant, director of the MIT Museum.</p>
<p>The committee encourages community members to submit questions and topics of discussion prior to the event by emailing <a href="mailto:climatechange@mit.edu">climatechange@mit.edu</a>. Participants can also send questions and comments via email and text message during the event.</p>
<p>From Tuesday’s event, the committee hopes that attendees leave with “an awareness, but also hope, in the sense that there is a way around the issue: If we recognize the problem, we can come up with solutions,” Slinn says. “Some [solutions] might be as easy as saying things in different ways — if we focus on things we have in common, as opposed to what pushes us apart.”</p>
Sustainability, Environment, Administration, Special events and guest speakers, Campus buildings and architecture, Climate change, CommunityThe Committee on Animal Care solicits feedbackhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/committee-animal-care-solicits-feedback-0325
Wed, 25 Mar 2015 17:59:20 -0400News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/committee-animal-care-solicits-feedback-0325<p>The Committee on Animal Care (CAC) and the vice president for research welcome any information that would aid our efforts to assure the humane care of research animals used at MIT and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.<br />
&nbsp;<br />
Established to ensure that MIT researchers working with animals comply with federal, state, local and institutional regulations on animal care, the CAC inspects animals, animal facilities, and laboratories, and reviews all research and teaching exercises that involve animals before experiments are performed.<br />
&nbsp;<br />
If you have concerns about animal welfare, please contact the CAC by calling 617-253-9436, or send your concern in writing to the CAC Office (Room 16-408), or by email to <a href="mailto:cacpo@mit.edu?subject=Animal%20welfare%20at%20MIT">cacpo@mit.edu</a>. You may also contact the vice president for research at 617-253-3206 or <a href="mailto:mtz@mit.edu?subject=Animal%20welfare%20at%20MIT">mtz@mit.edu</a>. The issue will be forwarded to the chair of the CAC and the attending veterinarian.<br />
&nbsp;<br />
All concerns about animal welfare will remain confidential; the identity of individuals who contact the CAC with concerns will be treated as confidential, and individuals will be protected against reprisal. The Committee on Animal Care will report its findings to the vice president for research, the director of comparative medicine, the individual who reported the concern, and oversight agencies as applicable.</p>
Research, Animals, Administration, Community, Whitehead InstituteHow can MIT be a game-changer on climate?http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/mit-climate-change-conversation-brainstorming-event-0313
MIT Climate Change Conversation gets underway with brainstorming session on how to catalyze change.Fri, 13 Mar 2015 17:30:00 -0400David L. Chandler | MIT News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/mit-climate-change-conversation-brainstorming-event-0313<p>A gathering of MIT students, faculty, staff, and alumni took part Thursday in series of talks, polling questions, and brainstorming sessions aimed at spurring the whole MIT community to engage in the process of making the Institute a world leader, role model, and catalyst for how campuses around the world can work to reduce their carbon footprint and create a more sustainable environment.</p>
<p>The event, billed as “Creating the Roadmap: Envisioning/Reducing MIT's Carbon Footprint,” began with talks outlining the MIT campus’ current energy usage and emissions, and the presentation of plans for new buildings and renovations that could have an impact on energy use. During the talks, participants had a chance to register their responses to questions about both factual information on campus energy use and opinions about priorities for improving things. Then, the group broke into small teams for brainstorming about suggestions on specific measures to reduce campus greenhouse-gas emissions.</p>
<p>“We’re here to engage you all in renewing the campus in a sustainable manner,” said Israel Ruiz, MIT’s executive vice president and treasurer, who initiated MIT’s creation two years ago of an Office of Sustainability. “It’s an issue I care a lot about,” he said, “how we’re actually going to change the world through what we do here.”</p>
<p>Ruiz pointed out that the campus already faces the need to carry out about $2 billion worth of renovations on its existing buildings over the next five to 10 years, but that need also presents a great opportunity for improving the overall energy efficiency of the campus.</p>
<p>In addition, he said, MIT has “a lot of great research where we can use the campus for experiments,” and potentially find innovations that other institutions can emulate.</p>
<p>Introducing the event, Christoph Reinhart, a professor of architecture, said the idea was to “seek broad input and see how MIT can respond” to the challenge of climate change, “and what we can do as a community” to address our own energy usage. “Based on this input, we will write a final report,” he said, and over the next few months all members of the MIT community are encouraged to submit suggestions and comments online, which need not be fully thought out or detailed.</p>
<p>MIT has 171 buildings totaling 12 million square feet of space, he said. Though that’s a minuscule footprint by global standards, how MIT manages its own facilities could have a disproportionate impact, he said: “We see ourselves as a catalyst for change, and there are a lot of people in the world looking at what we do.” If the Institute can find solutions on campus that are scalable and replicable, he said, “we can have an influence.”</p>
<p>Henry “Jake” Jacoby, professor emeritus of management, underscored that point, saying “MIT is really small, but in terms of demonstrating what can be done, it’s really important.” He suggested that one critical step would be to change the way accounting is done so that different departments and labs would explicitly have to account for their energy use in their own budgets, giving them a direct incentive to find more efficient approaches.</p>
<p>It’s essential, Jacoby added, given MIT’s reputation in the world, that “we don’t do things that are symbolic but don’t have a real effect.” It’s important to “not just do it, but do it right.”</p>
<p>In moving toward innovative solutions, one key aspect for a data-driven place like MIT is to improve the ability to collect detailed energy use data at a building-by-building level or better, and that process is already well underway, said Sarah Bylinsky, a program manager in the sustainability office. “We can’t manage what we can’t measure,” she said.</p>
<p>In making MIT into a world-leading example of how to maximize efficiency and minimize its impact on climate, Ruiz said that “the willingness is there, and there’s a full menu of opportunities.” Now, he said, it’s up to all the members of the MIT family to “help us choose what’s most effective for our community.”</p>
<p>In looking for innovative solutions, Bylinsky said, “we have to embolden ourselves. We shouldn’t be afraid to think big, beyond our current capacity, and to do as much as we can.”</p>
Christoph Reinhart, a professor of architecture, described MIT's present campus facilities and their energy usage, and the extent of improvements that are needed. Climate change, Environment, Global Warming, Sustainability, Community, Administration, Special events and guest speakers, Campus buildings and architectureMapping MIT’s path forward on climate changehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/mapping-mit-path-forward-climate-change-0310
Students, faculty, staff to join MIT Climate Change Conversation in open, interactive event.Tue, 10 Mar 2015 11:45:00 -0400Jessica Fujimori | MIT News correspondenthttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/mapping-mit-path-forward-climate-change-0310<p>On Thursday, March 12, MIT students, faculty, and staff will gather to discuss and share ideas on how the Institute can and should move toward a lower-carbon future.</p>
<p>The open event, titled “Creating the Roadmap: Envisioning/Reducing MIT’s Carbon Footprint,” will be held in Room 3-270 from 4 to 6 p.m. It is the second of four open-forum events this spring that are part of the MIT Climate Change Conversation.</p>
<p>“The goal of the series is to help the MIT campus engage with the question of what MIT should do about climate change,” says Sarah Brylinsky, a project manager in MIT’s Office of Sustainability and member of the Committee on the MIT Climate Change Conversation. “The event on March 12 will allow the campus community to suggest ideas for new ways of thinking about improving our carbon footprint on campus, air concerns, and brainstorm bold ideas to envision what a lower-carbon future might look like for the Institute.”</p>
<p>The first hour of the event will feature panelists and speakers including Executive Vice President and Treasurer Israel Ruiz, Director of Sustainability Julie Newman, and members of the Committee on the MIT Climate Change Conversation, including Brylinsky, Christoph Reinhart, an associate professor of architecture, and Henry Jacoby, professor emeritus of management.</p>
<p>“The panelists will explain where MIT is today in terms of operational carbon impact, the context in which we make decisions about campus operations, and where we might go in the future,” Brylinsky says.</p>
<p>The second hour of the event will be an interactive brainstorming session. Attendees can submit questions and comments through an online portal, and throughout the event there will be real-time digital polling to gather data on participants’ opinions and show the results of the surveys. The committee encourages people to submit questions or topics of discussion prior to the event by emailing <a href="mailto:climatechange@mit.edu">climatechange@mit.edu</a>.</p>
<p>The organizers hope to emerge with a collection of new ideas for MIT’s role in addressing climate change. “This gives us a chance to turn the lens of innovation inward and look at the campus as a laboratory for inventing a lower-carbon future,” Brylinsky says.</p>
<p>Proposals for how MIT can take action are collected in an idea bank on the MIT Climate Change Conversation website, where members of the community can present ideas and give feedback.</p>
<p>“Come to the event, listen, think on it a bit, and come up with new ideas,” Brylinsky says. “The best place to share those ideas is the idea bank.”</p>
<p>The event is an open conversation, she emphasizes, and students are especially welcome. “We really want students’ input at every stage in the conversation, but at this stage in particular,” Brylinsky says. “You don’t have to be a expert to come to this event and offer new ideas.”</p>
Sustainability, Environment, Administration, Special events and guest speakers, Campus buildings and architecture, Climate change, CommunityMIT to allocate record $103.4 million next year to ensure affordabilityhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/financial-aid-tuition-0306
Undergraduate financial aid budget to grow 8.8 percent; tuition and fees will rise 3.75 percent.Fri, 06 Mar 2015 12:15:00 -0500News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/financial-aid-tuition-0306<p>Underscoring its commitment to preserving broad access to MIT, the Institute will allocate $103.4 million next year to ensure affordability for its 4,500 undergraduate students — the first time MIT’s annual financial aid budget will exceed $100 million.</p>
<p>For the 2015-16 school year, the undergraduate financial aid budget will grow 8.8 percent, while undergraduate tuition and fees will increase 3.75 percent. The figures were announced today at a meeting of the MIT Corporation.</p>
<p>The sharp increase in the Institute’s financial aid budget reflects the commitment of an added $3.2 million to reduce what students are expected to contribute to their education through work and loans.</p>
<p>MIT’s $103.4 million budget for undergraduate financial aid next year is a dramatic increase from the $30.5 million spent in 2000 — a sustained rate of growth that far exceeds that of tuition and fee increases during the same period. For students with family incomes under $75,000 a year, MIT will continue to guarantee that scholarship funding from all sources allows them to attend the Institute tuition-free.&nbsp;</p>
<p>“MIT provides most of the financial aid its undergraduates receive,” says Dennis Freeman, dean for undergraduate education. “Next year we will have $103.4 million available to award in need-based scholarships that do not need to be repaid. This represents a significant increase in our financial aid budget, which will not only cover the increase in charges, but lower the net price for all students with financial need.”</p>
<p>While MIT’s financial aid program primarily supports students from lower- and middle-income families, even families earning more than $200,000 may qualify for need-based financial aid based on their family circumstances, such as if two or more children are in college at the same time. For undergraduates who do not receive need-based financial aid, total estimated expenses will be $60,434 next year, including $46,704 in tuition and fees, along with average housing and dining costs.</p>
<p>MIT is one of a small handful of institutions that admits all of its undergraduate students without regard to their financial circumstances, awards all of its financial aid based on need, and meets the full demonstrated financial need of all admitted students.</p>
<p>About 59 percent of MIT’s 4,510 undergraduates receive need-based financial aid from the Institute, including 32 percent who attend MIT tuition-free and 18 percent who receive Federal Pell Grants, which generally go to students with family incomes below $60,000.</p>
<p>Students receiving need-based financial aid from MIT, as well as Pell Grants, continue to benefit from MIT’s Pell Grant Matching Program, which helps such students to graduate with little or no debt. That program was created in 2006 to allow MIT students to use their Pell Grants to defray what they are expected to contribute to their education through work and loans.</p>
<p>Last year, 60 percent of MIT seniors graduated with no debt; of those who did assume debt to finance their education, the median indebtedness at graduation was $13,000.</p>
Education, teaching, academics, Financial aid, Administration, MIT Corporation, Student life, Students, Tuition, UndergraduateLetter regarding new roles in senior administrationhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/letter-new-senior-administration-roles-0306
Fri, 06 Mar 2015 11:30:00 -0500News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/letter-new-senior-administration-roles-0306<p><em>The following email was sent today to the MIT community by President L. Rafael Reif.</em></p>
<p>Dear faculty and staff colleagues,<br />
&nbsp;<br />
I write to inform you that I have asked a few members of the senior administration to step up to new responsibilities.<br />
&nbsp;<br />
The agenda I laid out in my inaugural remarks included bold aspirations and new initiatives for MIT. Over the past two and a half years, with inspired leadership from our faculty, we have made progress in many areas. To accelerate our progress as we prepare for a major capital campaign, I believe we need a slightly different structure, so I am making the following changes, effective today:<br />
&nbsp;<br />
Vice President Kirk Kolenbrander will adjust his portfolio to take on new responsibilities, working closely with our senior academic leadership -- Provost Marty Schmidt, Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart and Vice President for Research Maria Zuber -- to implement MIT's emerging initiatives. He will continue to advance our current strength in communications and marketing and will oversee Institute events. Since 2006, Kirk has served MIT with distinction as Vice President and Secretary of the Corporation, and I have come to count on him personally for his judgment, dedication and deep understanding of MIT, developed over 25 years at the Institute. I am grateful that he has agreed to take on these new challenges to advance our agenda.</p>
<p>Greg Morgan, currently Vice President and General Counsel, will assume new responsibilities as Senior Vice President and Secretary of the Corporation. Greg will help me coordinate strategic efforts across the central administration, serving in effect as a "chief of staff," while supporting the work of the MIT Corporation. Greg and Kirk will work closely together. A member of the MIT community since 2007, Greg established the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) and set the standard of excellence that now defines it. In that time, he has served MIT with extraordinary thoughtfulness and skill on an array of strategic issues. His personal wisdom, institutional insight and instinct for action will be invaluable as we enter this next phase.</p>
<p>Mark DiVincenzo, now deputy general counsel, will step into the role of Vice President and General Counsel. We are extremely fortunate to be able to make this promotion. Since 2001, Mark has provided MIT with expert counsel on a broad range of topics, from complex litigation to the most sensitive human issues. A trusted advisor to faculty and staff leaders across the Institute, Mark is ideally prepared to make a seamless transition to this role. (You will find more about Mark <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/divincenzo-named-vp-general-counsel-0306">here</a>.)<br />
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*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *<br />
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From the start, MIT's success has depended on brilliant faculty, students, postdocs and staff, free to explore, create, question and collaborate. It has been the privilege of each MIT administration to unite and empower them with the right support. The staffing changes I announce today will help us preserve our values, fulfill our aspirations and extend our success.<br />
&nbsp;<br />
Sincerely,<br />
&nbsp;<br />
L. Rafael Reif</p>
Kirk Kolenbrander and R. Gregory MorganAdministration, President L. Rafael Reif, StaffDiVincenzo named vice president and general counselhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/divincenzo-named-vp-general-counsel-0306
Institute’s deputy general counsel since 2007 will step up to serve as its chief legal officer.Fri, 06 Mar 2015 10:55:00 -0500Steve Bradt | MIT News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/divincenzo-named-vp-general-counsel-0306<p>Mark DiVincenzo, who has served since 2007 as MIT’s deputy general counsel, has been appointed as the Institute’s next vice president and general counsel, effective immediately.</p>
<p>An attorney at MIT since 2001, DiVincenzo succeeds R. Gregory Morgan, who has been named as the Institute’s senior vice president and secretary of the Corporation. President L. Rafael Reif announced both appointments today in a letter to the MIT community.</p>
<p>“In his 14 years at MIT, Mark has earned&nbsp;respect from faculty and staff across our community who have come to rely&nbsp;on his&nbsp;advice, strategic problem-solving, and superb professionalism,” Reif says. “That we were able to fill such a senior position from within speaks both to Mark’s character and accomplishments, and to the exceptional quality of our legal team.”</p>
<p>In his new capacity, DiVincenzo will report to Reif, serving as a senior advisor to the president and on his senior leadership team, and as the Institute’s chief legal officer, responsible for shaping MIT's approach to legal and regulatory affairs.</p>
<p>“I am honored that President Reif has asked me to serve the Institute in this role,” DiVincenzo says. “I am fortunate to be following the exceptional leadership of Greg Morgan, and to have in place a very talented team in the Office of the General Counsel. The OGC engages broadly with our community, and our attorneys have developed solid and trusting relationships across MIT. We aim to help members of our community engage in intelligent, creative problem-solving. I look forward to continuing our work to provide independent and effective advice to advance MIT’s mission.”</p>
<p>Established in 2007, MIT’s Office of the General Counsel (OGC) provides legal advice and counseling to MIT, and represents the Institute in its legal matters. Its 11 attorneys and one paralegal offer expertise in the array of legal issues facing an academic institution, including business affairs; faculty and staff employment issues; giving and investment; Institute affairs; litigation and dispute management; real estate and construction; research and intellectual property; risk management and compliance; and student life.</p>
<p>The OGC aims to inform its MIT clients about the laws, regulations, and policies that apply to MIT’s operations; to prevent legal problems and to solve those that occur; to facilitate MIT’s transactions; and to provide advice and representation. Rather than seeking to decide matters on behalf of MIT, the OGC aims to educate and advise its clients around the Institute so as to contribute to wise decisions by others.</p>
<p>“As Greg and I have said before, in representing the best interests of MIT, our attorneys strive to be partners who help find simplicity in complex problems and who help convene and inform stakeholders and decision-makers,” DiVincenzo says. “We regularly respond to questions from every part of the Institute — questions that frequently have no clearly right answer or process for getting to an answer. Our lawyers try to articulate options in a format that brings clarity, and we hope that keeping calm amid uncertainty is one of the services that we provide.”</p>
<p>DiVincenzo joined MIT in 2001 as litigation and risk management counsel. As deputy general counsel for the last eight years, he has played a key role in the management of legal services at the Institute, and within the OGC. Specifically, he has held primary responsibility for management of the Institute’s legal process and litigation; served as the Institute’s senior student life and employment counsel, providing training, counseling, and legal advice to departments, labs, and centers; and advised the Institute on issues including policy, risk, and compliance issues. Over the past year, he has served as a key advisor to Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart as she has led <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/mit-takes-steps-to-minimize-unwanted-sexual-behavior-1027">efforts to reduce unwanted sexual behavior</a> at MIT.</p>
<p>Prior to joining MIT, DiVincenzo practiced law with the firm Burns and Levinson as a business litigator and trial attorney, and then with the Boston office of Jackson Lewis, a national labor and employment law firm.</p>
<p>DiVincenzo graduated from Boston College in 1985 with a BA in political science, and received his law degree from Cornell Law School in 1988. He is an active member of the National Association of College and University Attorneys and the College and University Law Section of the Boston Bar Association.</p>
Mark DiVincenzoAdministration, President L. Rafael Reif, StaffMIT’s sustainability community gets to workhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/sustainability-connect-0305
Inaugural event brings together over 100 campus leaders to plan for greater efficiency, reduced waste.Thu, 05 Mar 2015 12:15:00 -0500David L. Chandler | MIT News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/sustainability-connect-0305<p>It was apparent even before the meeting began that this would be a different kind of event: The cups and plates were compostable, the name badges were plain paper, and there were no programs at all — the conference agenda came via a smartphone app.</p>
<p>Those small differences clearly signaled the purpose of this gathering: getting the MIT community to embrace the principles of efficiency and sustainability. The invitation-only event, called “Sustainability Connect,” took place Monday, bringing together faculty members, students, leaders of MIT’s facilities and sustainability offices, administrators, and others to hear about ongoing plans and to brainstorm about how to move the Institute toward a greener, cleaner, less-wasteful future.</p>
<p>The aim is to make MIT into a living laboratory for exploring, testing, and quantifying ways to make more efficient use of energy, water, buildings, and equipment — and then to disseminate information about the most successful practices to have a global impact.</p>
<p>“Innovation can be created, but it must also be proven,” said Julie Newman, MIT’s director of sustainability and the event’s lead organizer. “We need to create new metrics and new standards of efficiency.”</p>
<p>By harnessing the creative powers of the MIT community to make the campus into a test bed of technologies and practices for a more sustainable society, Newman said, the goal is to ask: “How can MIT be a game-changing force for innovation in the 21st century?”</p>
<p>Israel Ruiz, MIT’s executive vice president and treasurer, who spearheaded creation of the Office of Sustainability, said, “The challenge we’re addressing today is one that I’m personally very committed to.” Ruiz pointed out that the Institute is currently in the midst of&nbsp; “one of the largest construction periods MIT has ever experienced” — offering opportunities to ensure that new buildings and renovations respect, from the earliest design stages, the principles of efficiency and sustainability in their energy, water, waste-handling, and other systems.</p>
<p>Ruiz pointed to MIT.nano, which is being designed as the most energy-efficient cleanroom building of its kind in the country. Because of their need for huge volumes of air transport to maintain a dust-free environment, cleanrooms are exceptionally energy-intensive to operate; MIT.nano incorporates a variety of features designed to make it as efficient as possible without any compromises in its technical performance.</p>
<p>Bringing those considerations of sustainability into the design process at the earliest possible stage is key to getting the best performance, Ruiz said. “When you do this early enough in the design, it doesn’t cost that much,” he said.</p>
<p>In fact, in many cases it may not cost anything at all, said John Sterman, the Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Sterman, who was a strong advocate for energy efficiency in the design of MIT Sloan’s Building E62, said that a detailed analysis of the design and performance of that building shows that adding cutting-edge features for efficiency actually added essentially no cost to the building’s construction: The incremental cost was so small that it amounted to a “rounding error,” Sterman said — a small fraction of a percent.</p>
<p>Jeremy Poindexter, a graduate student in materials science and engineering, presented results from a study carried out by a team of students on the potential for installing solar panels on rooftops on the MIT campus. The total potentially usable roof area, he said, could produce as much as 27 megawatts of power, and MIT’s peak demand tends to be between 25 and 30 megawatts, so this could make a substantial contribution. The team suggested that using just the best, most easily adapted buildings for an initial project could yield 4.3 megawatts, without the need for any major retrofits.</p>
<p>After hearing from several speakers who described specific measures proposed and even tried out on MIT’s campus or elsewhere, the group broke into teams to brainstorm new ideas for how to reduce MIT’s environmental footprint, whether by addressing heating and cooling systems, generation and use of electricity, water supply and wastewater handling, food supplies and waste, or transportation systems.</p>
<p>Many participants were drawn from the membership of four new working groups created by the Office of Sustainability to offer guidance in specific areas; these groups will operate under the guidance of a Campus Sustainability Task Force, which Newman will co-chair. The four groups will focus on building design and construction; storm water and land management; green labs; and materials and waste management.</p>
<p>Ruiz said there will also be a new Campus Sustainability Steering Committee, comprising senior administrators and decision-makers, to “make sure that when we make a decision, sustainability will be a part of it.” Ruiz reiterated that this commitment is not just for a day or a month, but something that needs to become an ongoing and long-term part of how MIT operates.</p>
Julie Newman, director of MIT's Office of Sustainability, kicked of the day's events at Sustainability Connect.
Special events and guest speakers, Energy, Administration, Climate change, Environment, Sustainability, Campus buildings and architecture, MIT.nano, Nanoscience and nanotechnologyNickerson named vice president for communicationshttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/nate-nickerson-vp-communications-0224
Head of MIT News Office to assume larger role in coordinating Institute-wide communications.Tue, 24 Feb 2015 10:55:00 -0500News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/nate-nickerson-vp-communications-0224<p>Nate Nickerson, who has reshaped and reinvigorated the MIT News Office as its leader for the past five years, has been named vice president for communications, effective immediately. Kirk Kolenbrander, vice president and secretary of the Corporation, announced the appointment today in an email to MIT faculty and staff.</p>
<p>“More and more, topics at the center of our society — technological innovation, entrepreneurship, energy, big data, robotics, digital learning, human health — overlap with many areas of distinctive strength for MIT,” Kolenbrander wrote. “Since his arrival at the MIT News Office in 2009, Nate has recognized MIT’s global scope, visibility and impact, and transformed that office to keep pace. … Nate has built an exceptional news and media relations team while raising expectations for external communications across the Institute.”</p>
<p>Nickerson joined MIT in 2004 as deputy editor of <em>Technology Review</em>, the technology magazine and website owned by MIT. He moved to the News Office in 2009 as editorial director, and was named director of communications in 2010 and associate vice president for communications in 2012.</p>
<p>In his new capacity, Nickerson will continue to lead MIT’s central communications strategy, but with greater engagement of communications leadership from across the Institute. He will retain oversight of the News Office, but will also work Institute-wide to better connect its activities with those of the communications professionals who work on behalf of MIT’s schools, departments, labs, and centers — “to make the whole of our communications greater than the sum of its parts,” Nickerson says.</p>
<p>Nickerson will assume responsibility for emerging forms of public engagement, and will offer support to MIT’s upcoming capital campaign. He will also work to ensure that all parts of the Institute attract&nbsp;and retain the finest available communications talent.</p>
<p>“I am honored to be given this appointment, and eager to move forward with the work ahead,” Nickerson says. “All of us at the Institute who work in communications have the opportunity not only to tell MIT’s amazing story to the public, but also to create richer connection within the MIT community, and between it and the world.&nbsp;Communications&nbsp;leadership across the Institute is poised to use that opportunity in ways that can profoundly benefit the family of MIT, on campus and around the world.&nbsp;I’m very grateful to have superb colleagues ready to take our work to the next level.”</p>
<p>As vice president for communications, Nickerson will help MIT fulfill its mission by connecting and informing the Institute’s core and peripheral communities.&nbsp;He will lead three related efforts on behalf of the Institute:</p>
<ul>
<li>telling MIT’s story to the world in order to make plain its excellence and attract the talent and resources necessary to fulfill its mission;</li>
<li>telling its story to — and creating connections among — the members of MIT’s global community, in order to share Institute news and stoke collaboration; and</li>
<li>connecting MIT’s online learners, and those who wish to help MIT solve great challenges, with each other, and with the Institute.</li>
</ul>
<p>Nickerson joined the MIT News Office in 2009 as part of a reorganization initiated by then-President Susan Hockfield. That restructuring recast the 18-person News Office as a digital-only shop: The printed weekly <em>Tech Talk</em> ceased to be published, but an increased amount of editorial content produced by writers from both within and outside the News Office was posted to the website <em>MIT News</em>, which now reaches hundreds of thousands of readers beyond the MIT community each month. The News Office also manages the Institute’s media relations; its homepage; many of its top-level social media accounts; and the MIT Video website.</p>
<p>“Together, we have over the past six years tried to make the News Office into an organization that is able to serve the MIT community, the media, and the world at large with a level of service worthy of the Institute,” Nickerson says. “I am proud of what my colleagues have accomplished: They have built one of the most-read university news sites in the country; democratized the creation of content on our site so that communications staff across MIT have a home on the Institute’s main news channel; done very well with the media due to a thoughtful and targeted approach to outreach; begun to explore how social media can connect MIT to the world; and managed moments of crisis and emergency with poise and effectiveness. I will continue to derive energy and inspiration from this special group.”</p>
<p>Nickerson received his BA in English in 1992 from Beloit College in Wisconsin. Before joining MIT, he worked in magazine publishing in New York, serving as assistant managing editor of <em>Family Circle</em> from 1993 to 1999 and as managing editor of <em>Fast Company</em> from 2000 to 2003. Nickerson serves on the Public Affairs Committee of the Association of American Universities and on the Communications Advisory Committee of the Council on Competitiveness.</p>
Nate NickersonAdministration, Staff“Our judgments are shaped by biases”http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/institute-diversity-summit-0213
Keynote speaker Renée Richardson Gosline shares insights on preconceptions at Institute Diversity Summit.Fri, 13 Feb 2015 17:45:34 -0500David L. Chandler | MIT News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/institute-diversity-summit-0213<p>When children ages 3 to 4, of various races, are shown similar dolls, one white and one black, and asked to pick out the one they think is “good,” “smart,” “pretty,” or that “you want to be friends with,” they overwhelmingly pick the white doll. This is true even of African-American children.</p>
<p>That’s a startling example of the deep-seated biases and preconceptions that influence people’s choices, explained Renée Richardson Gosline, the Zenon Zannetos Career Development Assistant Professor&nbsp;at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, who was the keynote speaker Thursday at the second day of MIT’s annual Institute Diversity Summit.</p>
<p>“Our judgments are shaped by biases,” Gosline said — and those preconceptions can be remarkably persistent even when they are clearly and demonstrably false. The persistence of these biases makes it difficult to achieve a more fair and inclusive workplace and society, she said, even for well-meaning people who are sincerely trying to do so.</p>
<p><strong>Names change perceptions</strong></p>
<p>In another example of how biases affect perceptions — one that resonated with the members of the MIT community who gathered at Kresge Auditorium for the summit — Gosline showed examples from her own research, which asked people to evaluate “brain-training” software designed to boost reasoning skills. In the test, people used the exact same software, but for some of them it carried a label identifying it as coming from MIT, while for others it was identified as coming from the University of Phoenix.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, even though the product was the same, people using the MIT-branded version actually performed worse — but thought they had done better — than those with the Phoenix-branded version. Even people asked to carry out a task using a pencil with an MIT logo on it thought they performed better than those using a plain pencil.</p>
<p>And in research that bears more directly on workplace decisions, people asked to evaluate the performance of otherwise identical employees were more likely to describe the person as “bossy” and “selfish” if the name assigned to the employee was “Heidi” rather than “Howard.”</p>
<p>These internalized reactions can have a significant effect on efforts to boost the numbers of women and underrepresented minorities within a school or a company, Gosline said. Even if recruitment efforts succeed in attracting these groups, those people may not stay if they find themselves intimidated in subtle and even unconscious ways.</p>
<p><strong>Thinking about inclusion</strong></p>
<p>“You may find a higher attrition rate,” Gosline said. To counter that, “you really need to think about inclusion,” in every aspect of daily behavior and decision-making.</p>
<p>Gosline outlined a series of specific actions and approaches that people can take to try to counter their own biases. These include, for example, “active listening,” in which people try to understand another’s perspective.</p>
<p>The summit also featured a panel discussion with members of MIT’s top leadership: Provost Martin Schmidt, Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart, and Executive Vice President and Treasurer Israel Ruiz. The panel was moderated by Christine Ortiz, MIT’s dean for graduate education and the Morris Cohen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering.</p>
<p>The panelists discussed a <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/iceo-report-campus-inclusiveness-0212">new report</a> by Edmund Bertschinger, the Institute Community and Equity Officer, released yesterday, which outlines a series of 17 recommendations to help make MIT a more inclusive, fair, and caring place for all members of its community.</p>
<p>“The key, as I observe it, is to genuinely care for each other,” Barnhart said. She added that despite the intensity of life at MIT, people should take even a few minutes to check on those around them who may be having difficulties. “Conversations matter,” Barnhart said. “In addition to caring, you’ve got to be willing to commit the time.”</p>
<p>Ruiz commented on the new report’s call for representatives of all groups in the MIT community to work together on drafting a succinct “MIT Compact,” a clear statement of the Institute’s values and objectives. Such a document would reflect “the core values, and what we expect from each other,” Ruiz said.</p>
<p>Schmidt addressed the question of what may be needed to implement the new report’s many recommendations. “The recommendations are impressive both in scope and depth,” he said. “The challenge now is to gather feedback from the community, so that we make sure everybody’s on board. Time resources are what’s needed. … We need to really make this happen.”</p>
Renée Richardson Gosline, the Zenon Zannetos Career Development Assistant Professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, was the keynote speaker Thursday at the second day of MIT’s annual Institute Diversity Summit.Community, Diversity, Special events and guest speakers, AdministrationReport outlines path to greater campus inclusivenesshttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/iceo-report-campus-inclusiveness-0212
Institute Community and Equity Officer releases report aimed at fostering culture of respect and caring.Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:55:00 -0500David L. Chandler | MIT News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/iceo-report-campus-inclusiveness-0212<p>In 2013, MIT President L. Rafael Reif appointed Professor Edmund Bertschinger, who was then the head of the Department of Physics, to the newly created post of Institute Community and Equity Officer (ICEO).</p>
<p>In this role, Bertschinger was charged with developing a strategic plan that would advance Reif’s vision of “a caring community focused on MIT's shared values of excellence, meritocracy, openness, integrity and mutual respect … [and drawing] strength and energy from our extraordinary diversity of experiences and backgrounds.” The goal, Reif explained: “for everyone here to feel, as so many of us already do, that MIT is home.”</p>
<p>Today — after interviewing hundreds of faculty, staff, students, postdocs, and alumni, as well as conducting extensive research on practices both at MIT and at its peer institutions — Bertschinger has released a <a href="http://iceoreport.mit.edu/">132-page report</a> that includes a wide array of recommendations for ways to increase the sense of collegiality and inclusion among the roughly 26,000 active members of the Institute community.</p>
<p>In an accompanying letter to the MIT community, Provost Martin Schmidt explained that the release of today’s report marks the beginning of a process of collecting feedback, which will continue until April 15. Noting that anyone in the MIT community can submit comments on the report, he asked for insights and reactions to help identify those recommendations MIT should focus on.&nbsp;</p>
<p>“Outlining what Professor Bertschinger learned and suggesting next steps, the report offers an encouraging view of many aspects of our life as community, while also detailing areas for further attention,” Schmidt wrote. “A number of the ideas in the report would involve the whole community and require serious commitments of time and resources; as we consider the full suite of recommendations, we are eager for your insights and reactions.”</p>
<p>Bertschinger writes in the report that his aim is to enhance “the experience of MIT community members and helping them to leverage the power of diversity.” From his conversations with people from all parts of that community, Bertschinger reports that he encountered a strong desire to fulfill the concluding sentence of MIT’s mission statement: “We seek to develop in each member of the MIT community the ability and passion to work wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment of mankind.”</p>
<p>But while much has been done to make that goal a reality, he says, a series of specific actions could help bring MIT even closer to that ideal.</p>
<p><strong>An “MIT Compact”</strong></p>
<p>The new report has three goals, Bertschinger says: to develop a plan for the MIT community to deepen its sense of inclusion based on shared values and to help community members benefit from diversity; to present specific, achievable goals for advancing community and equity, along with means for assessing progress toward these goals; and to define the role of the ICEO.</p>
<p>Advancing these goals should be to everyone’s benefit, Bertschinger says, adding: “I am confident that those universities that empower all of their community members to feel respected and supported, so that the greatest possible diversity of talent and perspectives is available for problem-solving, will thrive. Until we can embrace our diversity, exercise empathy, and advance caring and respect, we will never achieve our full potential as individuals or as an Institute.”</p>
<p>The report spends considerable time exploring MIT’s existing culture and describes how it is experienced differently by members of different groups, such as faculty and staff. Building on this exploration, the report makes one overarching recommendation: the drafting of an “MIT Compact.” This would require assembling “a representative working group to write a brief statement of what we aspire to as a community and what we expect of each other as MIT community members.”</p>
<p>This is in line, Bertschinger says, with what other universities have done “to introduce new community members to their organizational culture and norms.” In keeping with the goal of encouraging wide participation, he does not offer a draft of this proposed compact, but rather recommends “a broadly inclusive process for its construction.”</p>
<p><strong>Building community and equity</strong></p>
<p>The 17 proposals in the report are divided into three broad categories: recommendations aimed at building community; those aimed at improving equity; and those that are structural in nature. Within each category, the individual proposals are prioritized into three groups.</p>
<p>A top-priority recommendation to build community is the launching of an educational campaign on the use of “bystander intervention techniques and micro-affirmations … to reduce micro-inequities, micro-aggressions and all forms of misconduct.” This would include orientation programs for all new community members; leadership and conflict-resolution workshops; and a bystander-intervention video competition.</p>
<p>The other leading community-building recommendation calls for an updating of MIT’s procedures for handling complaints, including an annual report to the president about formal complaints received and addressed. It also recommends that all departments and centers have faculty trained in conflict management to serve as informal mediators.</p>
<p>Bertschinger identifies two top recommendations to improve equity on campus. First is creation of a program to educate community members about unconscious bias through self-awareness programs. “All community members should learn about their unconscious bias,” Bertschinger’s report says. “But this is especially important for faculty, given their key roles in recruiting students and researchers.”</p>
<p>The other equity recommendation is a call for deans and department heads to review and work to implement existing faculty-equity reports. These reports include specific proposals to recruit, mentor, promote, and retain women and minority faculty, and to increase diversity among graduate students.</p>
<p>Bertschinger’s report points out the Institute’s great progress in increasing the representation of women and minorities in most parts of the MIT community, including a near-doubling of underrepresented minorities on the faculty in the last 10 years, from 4 percent to 7 percent. But a goal of tripling the number of underrepresented minorities among graduate students has so far fallen short, the report says, calling for a review of existing recruitment policies.</p>
<p><strong>Progress on salary equity</strong></p>
<p>One area where MIT has had great success, the report points out, is in salary equity between male and female faculty. According to a report from the American Association of University Professors, “MIT is the only one of its peers for whom female full professors earn as much, on average, as their male counterparts.”</p>
<p>Two of the report’s other top recommendations include the creation of a “community and equity dashboard” — a website that would provide demographic data and information on progress toward implementation of this report’s goals, both MIT-wide and for individual departments and centers. A second recommendation is for MIT to join the Leading for Change Higher Education Consortium, a statewide group formed to share data and best practices among universities striving for greater equity and inclusion.</p>
<p>Bertschinger writes that he feels the report will have achieved its mission if, by 2030, an objective report could say: “MIT has become the leading institution developing the talent of its community members for the betterment of humankind. Known originally as a foundry of ideas and technology, and later as an incubator of new businesses, MIT is now the premier institution developing and applying talent from all quarters to address the world’s great challenges using its famous ‘learning by doing, with caring and respect’ approach to collaborative problem-solving by students, postdocs, staff, and faculty.”</p>
Diversity, Community, Administration, President L. Rafael Reif3 Questions: John Charles on enabling IS&amp;T to meet MIT’s evolving needshttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/3-questions-john-charles-ist-evolution-0211
MIT’s vice president for information systems and technology shares his vision for IS&amp;T’s future.Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:45:00 -0500News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/3-questions-john-charles-ist-evolution-0211<p><em>John Charles joined MIT as vice president for information systems and technology (IS&amp;T) in January 2014. In this role, Charles is responsible for leading the IS&amp;T organization in implementing a shared technology vision — crafted together with faculty, staff, and students — in support of MIT’s education, research, and administrative programs. Charles recently discussed his vision for IS&amp;T with </em>MIT News<em>, explaining how IS&amp;T is transforming itself to better meet the needs of the MIT community.</em></p>
<p><strong>Q. </strong>What is your vision for the future of IS&amp;T, and how is the <a href="http://ist.mit.edu/about/org">organization</a> transforming itself to support this vision?</p>
<p><strong>A. </strong>The 21st-century IT context has changed, and IS&amp;T has had difficulty keeping up with the current pace of innovation and change. My vision is to enable the organization to better meet the needs of our faculty, staff, and students for IT systems and services. We are now experimenting with a new, agile operating model that is allowing us to accelerate the pace of IT-enabled innovation at MIT.</p>
<p>This practice of agile, iterative experimentation — think big, start small, fail fast, iterate rapidly — is key to enabling innovation. This new way of working together allows us to quickly gather the collective knowledge and points-of-view of cross-functional teams, and successfully incorporate input during system development.</p>
<p>While working to modernize the systems that widely support MIT’s administrative services and educational enterprise, we also want to enable the MIT community to innovate IT services in response to its diverse and specialized needs. I believe these two complementary approaches will allow IS&amp;T to better meet the needs of our community.</p>
<p>We are now determining how to best package IT services so that it will be intuitive for community members to access needed services and support. We want faculty to be able to easily and securely leverage open application programming interfaces [APIs] to create new systems and platforms for teaching and research; students to easily and securely create new applications; and staff members to feel better supported while also being able to create new applications that address specific needs. [More information about recent proof-of-concept projects can be found <a href="http://it.mit.edu/projects">here</a>.]</p>
<p>So that IS&amp;T will have greater capacity for supporting innovation and be better equipped to keep pace with rapidly evolving Institute needs, we are restructuring our teams into <a href="http://ist.mit.edu/about/org">three capability groupings</a>: “Emerging Solutions,” “Enabling Services,” and “Planning and Administration.”</p>
<p>The Emerging Solutions group will collaborate with teams across MIT to develop new systems solutions, employing holistic and integrated approaches to innovating administrative and student systems. Our current director of education systems, Eamon Kearns, will have an expanded role overseeing development of administrative systems as well as education systems.</p>
<p>The Enabling Services group will be responsible for rapid deployment of new IT services, and for ongoing operations and security of all IT systems and services. Our current director of operations and infrastructure, Mark Silis, will lead these efforts, overseeing all infrastructure, continuing operations, customer support services, and security resiliency.</p>
<p>The Planning and Administration group will provide project- and portfolio-management and support services, workforce planning, and financial and administrative support services for the Emerging Solutions and Enabling Services groups. Our current director of administration for IS&amp;T, Diana Hughes, will lead this group.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://web.mit.edu/itgc/">Information Technology Governance Committee</a> will guide us as we move forward to enhance our services and capabilities, and to ensure that our priorities support MIT’s mission in the best way possible.</p>
<p><strong>Q. </strong>What is the process you have followed to assess the Institute’s needs for IT services, and how will the new IS&amp;T operating model enable the organization to meet the community’s evolving needs?</p>
<p><strong>A. </strong>When I first joined MIT a year ago, I reviewed the comments, findings, and recommendations outlined in the 2012 IS&amp;T Advisory Council report, as well as the IT@MIT working group report of the 2009 Institute-wide Planning Task Force. My review revealed a set of common themes clustered around the Institute’s need to increase agility for systems development for academic departments, research laboratories, and centers, as well as for administrative units; modernize and advance business-process excellence; and enable innovation for MIT’s community.</p>
<p>These themes were validated through a listening tour, which included meetings with <a href="http://web.mit.edu/itgc/related.html">IT governance and advisory committees</a>, key stakeholders within the faculty and administration, and the Institute’s IT leaders group.</p>
<p>The new IS&amp;T operating model is explicitly designed to:</p>
<ul>
<li>embrace API-centric architectures that will enable IS&amp;T and other IT service providers to quickly respond to requests to extend the functionality of key Institute systems to meet differentiated needs;</li>
<li>incorporate the use of emerging data visualization and predictive analytics tools that will better enable us to keep pace with rapidly evolving needs for real-time access to structured and unstructured Institute data; and</li>
<li>break down existing barriers to integration and improve support for cloud-based services.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Q. </strong>What kinds of services and technologies are you exploring for future use at MIT, and how will these new solutions support innovation at MIT?</p>
<p><strong>A. </strong>Collectively, we are working to employ a suite of new solutions and services to significantly enhance support for innovation and the “maker” culture of MIT. We want to enable faculty, students, and staff to quickly build new applications that sit on top of existing computation, storage, security, and integration platforms without having to replicate those lower layers of the technology stack. We want to open safe and secure access to Institute data so that we can leverage real-time access to data to inform decision-making, and nurture the use of application and API repositories for code-sharing.</p>
<p>Most importantly, the new operating model enables teams working to develop innovative systems and solutions to hand off operational support responsibilities for new services deployed at scale — thereby freeing up the teams to focus on the next rounds of innovation.</p>
John Charles3 Questions, Administration, Information Systems and Technology, Security, Data, Community, StaffSilvio Micali succeeds Bill Freeman as associate head in EECShttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/silvio-micali-succeeds-bill-freeman-associate-head-eecs-0122
Thu, 22 Jan 2015 16:16:01 -0500Patricia Sampson | Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciencehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/silvio-micali-succeeds-bill-freeman-associate-head-eecs-0122<p>Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department (EECS) head Anantha Chandrakasan announced the appointment of Professor Silvio Micali as associate department head of EECS, effective Jan. 15. Micali succeeds Professor Bill Freeman, who served in this role and as a member of the Department Leadership Group (DLG) since July 2011.<br />
<br />
Micali, a graduate of University of California at Berkeley, is best known as a visionary for his fundamental and foundational work on public-key cryptography, pseudorandom number functions, digital signatures, oblivious transfer, secure multiparty computation, zero-knowledge proofs, and mechanism design.<br />
<br />
For his work, Micali has been recognized with many honors, including the Gödel Prize in 1993 and the RSA Prize in Cryptography in 2004. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003, and elected in 2007 to both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. Silvio Micali and Shafi Goldwasser received the 2012 Turing Award for their work in cryptography — developing new mechanisms for encrypting and securing information — methods that are widely applicable and applied today in communication protocols, Internet transactions, and cloud computing.<br />
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Micali has been awarded over 50 patents on practical implementations of his inventions for encryption, digital signatures, electronic cash, certified transactions, key-escrow, and more. He established two start-up companies: Peppercoin, for micropayments, launched in 2002 with Ron Rivest and was acquired by Chockstone in 2007; and CoreStreet, for real-time credentials, was acquired by ActiveIDentity in 2009.<br />
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Chandrakasan said in his announcement to the EECS faculty: “I know that Silvio will bring to his new position the clarity, creativity, and passion that characterize his research work and teaching, and the department will be the stronger for it.”</p>
<p>Chandrakasan also extended his appreciation to Freeman for his tremendous service as associate department head. Freeman played a key role in the faculty search and hiring process. Along with former associate department head Munther Dahleh, Freeman co-chaired the Strategic Hiring Areas planning, leading to the hiring of 12 faculty members. He also worked toward successfully establishing a student committee for the faculty search process.</p>
<p>Freeman was instrumental in creating Postdoc6, a dedicated community for the department's postdoctoral associates. For this initiative, he organized and launched an annual workshop for postdocs (held in January), as well as periodic lunches, with speakers, for the group during the semester.<br />
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Silvio Micali and Bill FreemanElectrical Engineering & Computer Science (eecs), Faculty, Administration, Computer science and technology, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), School of EngineeringImproving MIT&#039;s scheduling systemhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/unitime-improving-mit-scheduling-system-0122
New system provides flexibility for timetabling, student scheduling, final-exam scheduling, and event scheduling at the Institute.Thu, 22 Jan 2015 12:46:01 -0500Jo Flessner-Filzen | Office of the Registrarhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/unitime-improving-mit-scheduling-system-0122<p>With the September publication of MIT's fall 2014 final-exam schedule, the first phase of the project to implement a new scheduling system – <a href="http://www.unitime.org/" target="_blank">UniTime</a>, an open-source system developed by Purdue University – was successfully completed. This complex project was designed to replace aging technology, originally developed in the late 1960s, and to substantially expand the functionality and flexibility of our scheduling processes. The system supports four components: timetabling, or the process of generating a class schedule for each term; student scheduling; final-exam scheduling; and event scheduling, which supports community use of classrooms that are managed by the Office of the Registrar.</p>
<p>The focus of the first phase of the project was to eliminate our dependence on a dated algorithm for classroom scheduling and to meet emerging pedagogical needs. More specifically, it:</p>
<ul>
<li>allows us to define different instructional periods – a critical feature in terms of accurately scheduling subjects that are taught for less than a full term. With modularity becoming more prevalent in the curriculum, our ability to support faculty innovation in the delivery of subject content has been greatly enhanced by the new system.</li>
<li>integrates scheduling with the curricular-review process, thereby substantially improving the accuracy of the Online Subject Listing and Schedule.</li>
<li>supports complex subject configurations, such as classes taught in different formats during the same term and subjects for which departments manage the use of assigned classrooms on a weekly basis.</li>
</ul>
<p>In addition, UniTime provides a range of powerful tools for managing the many facets of scheduling. For example, UniTime:</p>
<ul>
<li>allows us to run simulations of term scheduling, final-exam scheduling, and student scheduling — and to share results with stakeholders. For instance, we can provide departments with detailed information about projected section sizes and how enrollments align with classroom size, all of which are germane to decisions about resource allocation.</li>
<li>optimizes, within minutes, student schedules and final-exam schedules to minimize direct time conflicts.</li>
<li>links events associated with the teaching of a class — such as tutorials and office hours — to the subject, thus giving us a more complete view of how faculty use our classrooms for instruction.</li>
<li>includes email tools to facilitate the confirmation process for classroom reservations.</li>
<li>provides users with a graphical view into the schedule of any classroom in the registrar’s inventory, coupled with powerful query tools to find specific scheduling information.</li>
</ul>
<p>As we look ahead to the next phase of the project, UniTime will become an even more visible, impactful presence to the MIT community. The first priority is to develop robust and intuitive tools for staff, faculty, and students to use in requesting classrooms (and keeping track of submitted requests), identifying the availability of classrooms, and communicating with the Schedules Office. Along the way, we will fine-tune the process and seek opportunities to integrate with other systems. We will also further modernize term scheduling, student scheduling, and final exam scheduling — recognizing the dynamic nature of academic scheduling at the Institute.</p>
Administration, Community, Information Systems and Technology, Education, teaching, academicsAlumni gift to SHASS establishes Cynthia L. Reed Chair in French Studies and Languagehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/alumni-shass-gift-establishes-cynthia-reed-chair-french-studies-language-0121
Associate Professor Bruno Perreau will be first to occupy the new chair, which will have a profound impact on French studies at MIT.Wed, 21 Jan 2015 13:18:01 -0500School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Scienceshttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/alumni-shass-gift-establishes-cynthia-reed-chair-french-studies-language-0121<p>Deborah K. Fitzgerald, the Kenan Sahin Dean of the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS), has announced the establishment of the Cynthia L. Reed Chair in French Studies and Language. The new chair was made possible by a gift from Cynthia L. Reed and her husband, John S. Reed ’61, former chairman of the MIT Corporation, in continuation of their long-standing support of French at the Institute.</p>
<p>“This wonderful gift from Cynthia and John Reed will have a profound impact on the French program of MIT SHASS,” Fitzgerald said. “First, it will ensure that the school’s commitment to educating MIT students in French language and culture will continue into the future. And second, it will galvanize a new generation of French scholars to create innovative research projects that expand and perhaps even challenge existing traditions within French studies.”<br />
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<strong>Bruno Perreau to be inaugural Cynthia Reed Chair</strong><br />
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Associate Professor Bruno Perreau, the Class of 1956 Career Development Professor and a&nbsp;rising star&nbsp;in the field of French studies, gender, and national identity, will be the inaugural holder of the Cynthia Reed Chair, Fitzgerald said.<br />
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“Being awarded the new Cynthia Reed Chair in French Studies and Language is an extraordinary honor," Perreau said. "I could not dream of a better recognition of my work on family politics, queer theory, and French citizenship.&nbsp;I feel all the more proud because this new chair also pays tribute to the pioneering work of my predecessors: Isabelle de Courtivron, Edward Turk, and Gilberte Furstenberg.”<br />
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Perreau credited the three emeritus faculty members with building the rich research community of French scholars at MIT — one that continually moves the field in new directions. Indeed, it was the innovative teaching of MIT’s French faculty that inspired Cynthia Reed and her husband to endow the new chair, according to the donors.<br />
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<strong>Inspired by French language and culture</strong><br />
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“Studying French and spending a year abroad was a turning point in my life,” Mrs. Reed said. “While John was teaching at Sloan I took a French class with Gilberte Furstenberg.&nbsp;It was there I discovered that so many MIT students, from all academic disciplines, were studying foreign languages and cultures. We are hopeful that this support will enable others to have the same experience that I did.”&nbsp;<br />
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A member of the MIT faculty since 2010, Perreau said the Cynthia&nbsp;Reed Chair will enable him to expand his research into national identity, and minority politics in France. “I am interested in examining French culture as a resource for incubating ideas or forging new identities,” he said. “I deeply believe that the future of French studies lies in our ability to understand both French society and how it is imagined.”<br />
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The author of several books, including "The Politics of Adoption: Gender and the Making of French Citizenship" (MIT Press, 2014), Perreau holds a PhD in political science from Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris.&nbsp;He recently spearheaded the launch of the&nbsp;Global Borders Research Collaboration&nbsp;(with&nbsp;PRESAGE Sciences Po and the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University), an initiative that promotes the study of identities, kinship, citizenship, and the sense of belonging across national borders. He also founded&nbsp;the&nbsp;MIT Global France Seminar, a free series of events that examine&nbsp;French and Francophone studies in a global context. &nbsp;</p>
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<h5><em>Story by SHASS Communications<br />
Editorial and Design Director: Emily Hiestand<br />
Senior Writer: Kathryn O'Neill<br />
Communications Assistant: Daniel Pritchard</em></h5>
Pont Alexandre III, ParisAdministration, Giving, France, Awards, honors and fellowships, Humanities, Global Studies and Languages, Global, FacultyAlumnus Larry Linden to speak on his “journey to climate activism”http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/alumnus-larry-linden-to-speak-on-climate-change-activism-0120
Founder of Linden Trust for Conservation to speak at MIT this week.Tue, 20 Jan 2015 10:00:42 -0500Andrew Clark | MIT News correspondenthttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/alumnus-larry-linden-to-speak-on-climate-change-activism-0120<p>Throughout the spring semester, the <a href="http://climatechange.mit.edu/" target="_blank">MIT Climate Change Conversation</a> will sponsor a number of events with one unifying goal in mind: bringing the campus together to figure out how MIT can best take on climate change.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, Jan. 21, the series of events kicks off with a talk titled, “One Man’s Journey to Climate Activism: A Talk with Dr. Larry Linden.” The event will take place from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in Room 32-123 (Kirsch Auditorium), with a reception to follow.</p>
<p>Linden SM ’70, PhD ’76 is a former general partner and managing director of Goldman Sachs. He is currently the head of the <a href="http://lindentrust.org/" target="_blank">Linden Trust for Conservation</a>, an organization that provides both financial and strategic support to conservation projects.</p>
<p>The Linden Trust is noted for its unique funding arrangements: For instance, this past year, it helped create a $215 million fund intended to provide long-term protection for 150 million acres of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. To achieve this, the fund tapped both private and public sources of funding around the world, including the German government.</p>
<p>At the beginning of his career, Linden served on the White House staff during the Carter administration, helping to develop technology policy for areas such as environmental protection. Following his time at the White House, Linden was a partner at consulting firm McKinsey, where he advised corporations in the technology sector.</p>
<p>Linden is now a member of the board of directors of the World Wildlife Fund; he formerly chaired this board. Additionally, he was a member and chairman of the board of trustees of Resources for the Future.</p>
<p>Roman Stocker, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and chair of the Committee on the MIT Climate Change Conversation, says Linden’s talk will be “an inspiring call for engagement for the MIT community, and an ideal starting point for the series of events this semester that are part of the conversation for how MIT can best confront climate change.” Linden will also address policy instruments that can contribute to climate-change mitigation.</p>
<p>Stocker adds: “Dr. Linden’s affiliation with MIT, his broad background and significant experience in both finance and policy, and his current efforts in the climate-change arena through the Linden Trust are elements that make his a uniquely suited talk to inspire the MIT community to think about: ‘What can MIT do about climate change?’”</p>
Larry Linden SM ’70, PhD ’76MIT Climate Change Conversation, Environment, Civil and environmental engineering, Climate change, Global Warming, Sustainability, Administration, School of Engineering, Community, Special events and guest speakers, Alumni/aeDeval Patrick to participate in MIT&#039;s Innovation Initiativehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/deval-patrick-mit-innovation-initiative-0113
Former Massachusetts governor to contribute to activities on policy and economic prosperity.Tue, 13 Jan 2015 12:41:37 -0500Peter Dizikes | MIT News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/deval-patrick-mit-innovation-initiative-0113<p>Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick will become a visiting fellow at MIT this spring, engaging with the Institute community on issues at the intersection of policymaking, entrepreneurship, and innovation-based growth.</p>
<p>Officially, Patrick will be a visiting innovation fellow at the MIT Innovation Initiative. As part of his role, Patrick will make regular appearances at campus events, including seminars with students and faculty. He will also have formal office hours.</p>
<p>“Innovation is the fuel of our economy,” Patrick says. “Massachusetts’ inventors and innovators, many of whom have come out of MIT, have worked with business and government leaders to make the Commonwealth a leader in many industries. I am honored to join this esteemed Institute and contribute to this new initiative.”</p>
<p>The MIT Innovation Initiative provides formal cross-campus organization and a corresponding set of programs expanding the Institute’s capacity to contribute to global innovation. It aims to enhance MIT’s “innovation infrastructure” by accelerating the process for moving basic research out of the lab and into the market.</p>
<p>In practice, this can mean creating partnerships among academia, industry, and government — an approach that is increasingly endorsed by empirical research. Such partnerships may spur growth and help develop innovation “ecosystems” and “hubs,” or regions of excellence in particular industries, which have been shown to accelerate economic gains.</p>
<p>During his eight years as governor, Patrick emphasized the importance of building innovation hubs and forging connections with business and academia, often visiting MIT for addresses, public forums, and ceremonies. Patrick left office last Thursday.</p>
<p>MIT President L. Rafael Reif says he welcomes Patrick’s presence on campus as a means of promoting a productive dialogue between policymakers and innovators.</p>
<p>“In leading the Commonwealth, Governor Patrick took the time to educate himself about how fundamental science produces world-changing technologies, and about the kind of government policies that help innovation flourish,” Reif says. “His personal commitment to these issues has made a tremendous positive difference, and we are delighted that he will join us in educating our students in turn.”</p>
<p>Fiona Murray, the Bill Porter Professor of Entrepreneurship and associate dean for innovation at the MIT Sloan School of Management, says she looks forward to having Patrick share his ideas with the Institute’s students and faculty.</p>
<p>“Governor Patrick has been an international innovation diplomat for Massachusetts and can speak to the important role of government in fostering innovation,” Murray says. “We welcome his insights.”</p>
<p>The MIT Innovation Initiative, led by Murray and Vladimir Bulovic, the Fariborz Maseeh Professor of Emerging Technology and associate dean for innovation in MIT’s School of Engineering, also extends programs for developing entrepreneurship as a set of skills for students, faculty, staff, and alumni.</p>
<p>In his two terms as Massachusetts governor, beginning in 2007, Patrick delivered an economic policy address at MIT; participated in groundbreaking ceremonies for multiple businesses in Kendall Square; and spoke at symposia on the life sciences and the environment. Patrick also delivered MIT’s 2009 Commencement address, telling graduates, “Your ideas and contributions will defy prediction.”</p>
<p>Massachusetts has enhanced its position as a global leader in a variety of advanced industries in recent years, from biotechnology and information technology to medical devices. The state government has provided an array of programs and incentives to spur growth across many of these fields.</p>
Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval PatrickInnovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E), Entrepreneurship, Innovation Initiative, School of Engineering, Sloan School of Management, Administration, Awards, honors and fellowships, President L. Rafael Reif, Policy$118M gift from MIT alumnus will advance socially responsible and sustainable real estate developmenthttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/samuel-tak-lee-gift-real-estate-entrepreneurship-lab-0108
Samuel Tak Lee MIT Real Estate Entrepreneurship Lab to include focus on China.Thu, 08 Jan 2015 02:00:07 -0500Resource Developmenthttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/samuel-tak-lee-gift-real-estate-entrepreneurship-lab-0108<p>MIT has received one of the largest gifts in its history, from alumnus Samuel Tak Lee ’62, SM ’64, to establish a real estate entrepreneurship lab that will promote social responsibility among entrepreneurs and academics in the real estate profession worldwide, with a particular focus on China. The gift will fund fellowships to attract both U.S. and international students; will support research on sustainable real estate development and global urbanization; and will make the lab’s curriculum available online to learners worldwide via <em>MITx</em>.</p>
<p>The $118 million gift was formalized yesterday at a signing ceremony at MIT, attended by Lee; his son, Samathur Li; MIT President L. Rafael Reif; Executive Vice President and Treasurer Israel Ruiz; Chancellor for Academic Advancement Eric Grimson; and Vice President for Resource Development Julie Lucas. In recognition of Lee’s substantial and ongoing commitment to the Institute, Building 9, home to the MIT Center for Real Estate, will be named the Samuel Tak Lee Building.</p>
<p>“With this gift, Sam Lee aims to tap the transformative power of real estate to shape the built environment, and thereby to shape society and culture, to enrich our shared civic life, to increase our harmony with nature — in short, to make a significant positive impact on the world,” Reif says. “As MIT strives to work for the betterment of humankind, Sam’s generosity dramatically increases our capacity to create and inspire far-reaching positive change. We are deeply grateful for the vision and partnership of the Lee family, and for the trust they have placed in MIT.”</p>
<p>Lee says his gift was motivated by a desire to design a program with MIT that tightly ties the study of real estate to 21st-century realities such as land reform, environmental challenges, burgeoning populations, and an evolving global economy.</p>
<p>“This is a period of tremendous change and opportunity for entrepreneurs in China and around the world,” Lee says. “By cultivating a long-term perspective, real estate professionals can create even greater value for themselves and for society based on responsible, sustainable strategies. I am eager to connect ambitious, talented students with the skills and knowledge that will help them succeed.”</p>
<p>The new Samuel Tak Lee MIT Real Estate Entrepreneurship Lab will be housed in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) and the Center for Real Estate (CRE). The CRE investigates the real estate transaction from initial concept to market reality through a cross-disciplinary lens, including design, urban planning, environmental studies, construction, management, economics, finance, policy and regulation, and the law. MIT is a pioneer in the study of real estate, becoming the first university to offer a Master of Science degree in real estate development in 1983.</p>
<p>“Real estate is inherently interdisciplinary, and so is the culture of MIT,” Grimson says. “Whether turning its attention to the role of real estate in fostering prosperity, the design of cities, or the consumption of energy, this new lab will be strengthened by interactions with departments and programs across MIT.”</p>
<p>The lab’s professors and students, Grimson says, will seek partners within the School of Architecture and Planning — such as the Center for Advanced Urbanism, the Media Lab, and the Building Technology Program — as well as from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and from such MIT departments as civil and environmental engineering, materials science and engineering, economics, anthropology, and others that share an interest in responsible real estate development.</p>
<p>While preliminary work with respect to the Samuel Tak Lee MIT Real Estate Entrepreneurship Lab will begin immediately, formal program activities will commence in the 2015-16 academic year under the leadership of an endowed faculty chair and an administrative director, still to be announced. The gift will also establish a “Think Tank” and a research fund to ensure MIT’s continued commitment to research and thought leadership in sustainable and socially responsible real estate development and global urbanization. Some of the topics and projects that the lab will focus on include: development and urbanization through private action and entrepreneurship; urban resilience and adaptation; land-use reform regulations and codes; new construction materials; data and technology; affordable housing; and environmental aspects of urban growth and development.</p>
<p>According to Albert Saiz, the director of the MIT Center for Real Estate, the lab will explore questions of social responsibility — ranging from the individual’s obligations to society to the impact of the built environment on the natural environment — that are essential to how CRE prepares its students to operate in a complex global market.</p>
<p>“We want our graduates to become catalysts for profitable development around the world,” says Saiz, who is the Daniel Rose Associate Professor of Urban Economics and Real Estate. “At the same time, we believe the real estate profession must develop nuanced solutions to global concerns such as environmental change, population growth, and transforming economies.”</p>
<p>The Samuel Tak Lee MIT Real Estate Entrepreneurship Lab will attract top research talent from around MIT and beyond, Saiz notes. “The lab’s graduate students, visiting scholars, and practitioners will also become a leading global community for the development of successful models of sustainable real estate,” he says. “And the lab’s educational program will inspire a new generation of socially conscious and knowledgeable citizens and entrepreneurs.”</p>
<p>Accordingly, the lab will emphasize both the practical — for example, developing new case studies, the major component of a CRE and DUSP education — and the global, focusing on the rapidly changing real estate practice in China.</p>
<p>“Deepening our understanding of development in China through the Samuel Tak Lee MIT Real Estate Entrepreneurship Lab has the potential to inform our broader outlook on urbanization, city planning, and design,” says Eran Ben-Joseph, professor and head of MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. Ben-Joseph says that DUSP’s extensive history in China — such as the Beijing Urban Design Studio, a summer exchange between MIT and Tsinghua University that dates back to 1984 — will give the lab a running start.</p>
<p>“The issues that create complexity in Chinese real estate, such as migration, land ownership, and environmental impacts, make it a fertile area for research and practice,” Ben-Joseph says. “Lessons learned from China can serve as models worldwide.”</p>
<p>The gift will provide fellowships to attract graduate students of diverse geographic, social, and economic origins to study real estate entrepreneurship on MIT’s campus, with an emphasis on students from China. And <em>MITx</em> will share the lab’s curriculum with a global audience by translating its content to massive open online courses.</p>
<p>“Throughout China — and all over the world — there are talented young people with a strong capacity to take individual initiative,” Lee says. “My hope is that by offering them MIT-level tools and perspectives, the lab will empower students from all backgrounds to take their place among the next generation of global real estate entrepreneurs.”</p>
<p>Lee received two degrees from MIT: a bachelor’s degree in 1962 and a master’s degree in 1964, both in civil and environmental engineering. After graduating from MIT, he joined Prudential Enterprise, a Hong Kong–based real estate company founded by his father and a cousin. Under Lee’s leadership in the following decades, Prudential has grown into a multinational firm with significant holdings in Hong Kong, England, Japan, Switzerland, and Singapore. Lee is widely known for his 1994 acquisition and development of the Langham Estate in London’s West End, approximately 14 acres of commercial space that is now a major business and shopping destination.</p>
Samuel Tak Lee '62, SM '64 (standing, left) and MIT President L. Rafael Reif look on as Lee's son, Samathur Li, and MIT Executive Vice President and Treasurer Israel Ruiz sign documents related to Lee's $118 million gift to MIT.Real estate, Giving, School of Architecture + Planning, Urban studies and planning, Administration, Alumni/ae, Facilities, Global, Massive open online courses (MOOCs), President L. Rafael Reif, MITx, online learning, Sustainability, ChinaGlen Shor named vice president for financehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/glen-shor-vice-president-finance-1217
Secretary for administration and finance for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will join MIT in January.Wed, 17 Dec 2014 11:55:00 -0500MIT News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/glen-shor-vice-president-finance-1217<p>Glen Shor, who is now secretary of administration and finance for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, will join MIT in January as its next vice president for finance (VPF). Israel Ruiz, executive vice president and treasurer, announced the news today in an email to MIT faculty and staff.</p>
<p>Shor has worked for Gov. Deval&nbsp;Patrick’s administration since 2007. Before assuming his current role in 2013, he served as executive director of the Massachusetts Health Connector, overseeing the Commonwealth’s public health insurance exchange from 2010 to 2012; as assistant secretary for health care policy and deputy general counsel; and&nbsp;as policy director&nbsp;in the Commonwealth’s Executive Office for Administration and Finance from 2007 to&nbsp;2010.</p>
<p>Before serving in the Patrick administration, Shor was senior policy counsel and assistant attorney general in the Office of the Attorney General of Massachusetts, a senior policy aide to former U.S. Rep.&nbsp;Martin T. Meehan, chief counsel to U.S. Sen.&nbsp;Charles E. Schumer, and a public interest attorney. MIT’s previous VPF, Michael Howard, left MIT in June.</p>
<p>“Glen brings exceptional financial, operational, and leadership skills to the position of VPF. He has a deep commitment to service and a collaborative leadership style that resonate with the MIT culture,” Ruiz wrote.” I have the greatest enthusiasm for the contributions Glen will make to the Institute.”</p>
<p>In his new role, Shor will lead a team that is charged with delivering effective financial and administrative services to the Institute. As VPF, he will have responsibility for budget, financial analysis, accounting, and tax functions, as well as financial operations, which include procurement, sourcing, travel, accounts payable, and payroll. The VPF also plays a critical role in ensuring the integrity of the Institute’s financial reporting and compliance functions.</p>
<p>“The vice president for finance plays a vital role as a strategic steward of MIT’s resources,” MIT President L. Rafael Reif says. “With the breadth and intensity of his past experience, Glen Shor will be a tremendous addition in this post.”</p>
<p>“I am excited to join MIT as vice president for finance,” Shor says.&nbsp;“I look forward to joining an exceptional finance team in supporting MIT’s mission of advancing knowledge and progress through world-class academics and research.”</p>
<p>As secretary of administration and finance, Shor was responsible for managing state finances and budgetary activities, including development of the Commonwealth’s operating and capital budgets. He oversaw 17 state agencies with more than 3,300 employees providing core administrative services, including state-tax collection, information technology services, and human resource management.&nbsp;As chair of the Board of the Massachusetts Health Connector, Shor continued to lead health coverage expansion in the Commonwealth; he also served on the boards of the Health Policy Commission and Massachusetts Life Sciences Center. Previously, as assistant secretary for health care policy, he was a lead policy person for implementing health&nbsp;care reform in Massachusetts, and was profiled in the <em>Boston Globe Magazine</em> in 2012 for his leadership.</p>
<p>Shor holds a BA in history from Yale University, awarded in 1993, and earned a law degree from Harvard University in 1996. He lives in Needham, Mass., with his wife, Ellen, and two children.</p>
Administration, Staff, FinanceLorraine Goffe-Rush named vice president for human resourceshttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/lorraine-goffe-rush-vice-president-hr-1216
Vice chancellor at Washington University in St. Louis will join MIT in February.Tue, 16 Dec 2014 10:55:00 -0500Steve Bradt | MIT News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/lorraine-goffe-rush-vice-president-hr-1216<p>Lorraine A. Goffe-Rush, who is now vice chancellor for human resources at Washington University in St. Louis, will join MIT in February as its next vice president for human resources. Israel Ruiz, executive vice president and treasurer, announced the news today in an email to MIT faculty and staff.</p>
<p>“Lorraine brings a deep understanding of the university environment, organization, and community; broad and progressive HR experience; and a collaborative leadership style,” Ruiz says. “I am delighted that she will be joining MIT.”</p>
<p>Goffe-Rush has worked in human resources at Washington University since 2000. Before assuming her current role this past January, she was assistant vice chancellor for human resources from 2010 to 2013; director of human resources from 2006 to 2010; and director of employee relations from 2000 to 2006.</p>
<p>“Throughout the recruitment process, I have been impressed by the talented individuals I’ve met, from the search committee to the leadership team, and I am honored to be joining MIT,” Goffe-Rush says. “I am committed to talent development, teamwork, and aligning HR strategies to organizational goals. I look forward to working collaboratively with all members of the Institute in support of the groundbreaking work being done at MIT.”</p>
<p>As Washington University’s top human resources official, Goffe-Rush has led efforts to streamline retirement fund options; redesigned health plans to reduce expenses and improve outcomes; designed and implemented employee wellness initiatives; and negotiated two collective bargaining agreements.</p>
<p>Previously, as assistant vice chancellor, she was responsible for the development and implementation of policies, programs, and services in the areas of employment, employee relations, human resources management systems, faculty records, staff diversity and inclusion, and learning and organizational development. She has also been responsible for ensuring institutional compliance with applicable laws and regulations, and with meeting the diverse needs of a large campus community.</p>
<p>“At MIT, living up to our mission requires superb talent united in extraordinarily effective teams, all across the Institute,” MIT President L. Rafael Reif says. “Given her impressive record of success in another highly decentralized university, we are fortunate that Lorraine Goffe-Rush has agreed to join us in meeting this challenge.”</p>
<p>Goffe-Rush holds a BA in business administration from William Woods University in Fulton, Mo., awarded in 1986; later, in 1992, she earned an MBA from National University in San Diego. Her first job after college was as a manager of operations, customer service, and purchasing at a small medical supply company in St. Louis — a role that led her to pursue a career in human resources.</p>
<p>After marrying and moving to San Diego, Goffe-Rush accepted her first human resources job at Fornaca Family Bakery, then the largest privately-owned bakery in Southern California. In 1992, she joined San Diego Gas &amp; Electric Co., where she was promoted to a supervisory human resources role, overseeing compensation, benefits, and employee relations for approximately 4,000 employees.</p>
<p>Goffe-Rush returned to St. Louis with her husband in 1998 to be closer to family, joining Barnes-Jewish Hospital as a senior human resources consultant. In 1999, she became manager of human resources at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, overseeing compensation, benefits, recruitment support, and employee activities.</p>
<p>Since joining Washington University in 2000, Goffe-Rush has helped implement improvements in human resources processes and make more effective use of technology, including the development of an electronic document-management system. She has led the university’s Affirmative Action Compliance Review Team and outsourced paper-intensive employment- and income-verification processes, allowing for more efficient use of staff resources.</p>
<p>Goffe-Rush earned certification as a senior professional in human resources in 2003. She is a member of professional organizations including the National Higher Education Recruitment Consortium, the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, and the Society for Human Resource Management.</p>
Lorraine A. Goffe-RushAdministration, Community, Staff, President L. Rafael ReifMIT community engages in dialogue on racehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/black-lives-matter-event-1211
President Reif: Winterfest protestors “are asking us to listen, to collaborate, and to act.”Thu, 11 Dec 2014 18:00:00 -0500Chuck Leddy | MIT News correspondenthttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/black-lives-matter-event-1211<p>“At MIT, every semester is a hard semester,” MIT President Rafael Reif said at Wednesday afternoon’s Winterfest, in remarks to the MIT community. “For many members of our community, this semester, and especially the events of the last few weeks, in Missouri and Staten Island, have been hard in a completely different way.”</p>
<p>Ten minutes earlier, Reif —&nbsp;like all Winterfest attendees arriving at the Stata Center — had walked past a silent protest: Dozens of members of the MIT community stood outside each of the building’s entrances in silence as a cold drizzle fell, many of them clad in black T-shirts displaying the words “#Black Lives Matter.”</p>
<p>Many of those protesters then came inside to listen to Reif’s remarks. For many at MIT, Reif said, the recent events have been “hurtful, deeply disturbing, and heartbreaking.” Referring to the protesters he’d seen outside, Reif added, “Today, some members of our community organized a demonstration to say, through their silence, that black lives matter.&nbsp;… That the injustices of our society make this statement necessary is incredibly sad.”</p>
<p>Reif said the ongoing pursuit of racial equality and social justice “is one of the world’s great challenges. … Recent events have shown us, again, that terrible fault lines of race are still a major issue in our society. It would be naïve to think that we at MIT are somehow immune to these problems: MIT is a microcosm of our broader society. It shares many of its flaws, as well as its virtues.”</p>
<p>Reif noted that the protesters “are asking us to listen, to collaborate, and to act.”</p>
<p><strong>“Black Lives Matter”</strong></p>
<p>Less than two hours later, inside Building E51, some 400 members of the MIT community — including about 100 who overflowed Wong Auditorium — participated in a dialogue on race at MIT that featured a panel discussion, as well as smaller group sessions. The <a href="http://diversity.mit.edu/event/black-lives-matter/">event</a>, called “Black Lives Matter,” was sponsored by MIT’s Institute Equity and Community Office, along with the Black Students Union, Black Women’s Alliance, and Black Graduate Student Association.</p>
<p>Moderator Mareena Robinson-Snowden, a fourth-year PhD student in nuclear science and engineering, began by expressing the special responsibility MIT students have: “We are leaders in the solutions-building business,” she said.</p>
<p>Panelist Andrew Jones ’10, SM ’14 added a further positive note, saying he was energized by the demonstrations and the more open dialogue he’d observed around issues of racism. “I’m excited by what will happen next,” Jones said. “These protests will keep going forward as people realize racism didn’t end with the election of Barack Obama as president.”</p>
<p>In her remarks, Ayida Mthembu, associate dean for Student Support Services, cited the nation’s long history of racism.</p>
<p>“We, as a nation, have a covenant that we have to keep,” Mthembu said. “We’re in a long struggle of over 400 years. In the 1960s, when I was in college, we had the same things happening. It’s amazing how memory closes off the past. I’ve been visited by many students filled with rage, frustration, and anger. I try to tell them, ‘You’re part of a process, you’re not alone.’ We’re in trouble if we can’t get the rage down and the dialogue up.”</p>
<p>Senior Ikenna Enwere, a chemical engineering major, echoed Mthembu: “It’s a very stressful time on campus. We want a climate here where the institution reaches out to us before we need to act.”</p>
<p>Melissa Nobles, the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor in the Department of Political Science, urged students not to assume that their academic work is somehow separate from issues of social justice. “Yes, you’re scientists and engineers,” she said, “but you’re also citizens who need to understand the society you inhabit, and race is a big part of that.”</p>
<p>Panelist Tammy Stevens ’96, ’97, associate dean of academic and professional programs, said her MIT education taught her how to solve problems, and not just technical ones. “I’m a doer,” Stevens said. “We can’t just keep repeating history. We need to put an infrastructure in place here at MIT” to promote social justice — such as a required class in social justice, Stevens said.</p>
<p>Mthembu highlighted the need to engage in open dialogue about race, despite the potential discomfort. She described a dialogue with a white person who wanted to know, “How should I refer to you?” When Mthembu suggested the person simply call her “Ayida,” she got a head-shaking response: “No, I mean what do I call your people?”</p>
<p>As the audience chuckled, Mthembu recalled explaining, with much patience, “Well, that’s a difficult question. My grandfather was colored. My father was a Negro. I am black. And my children are African-American.”</p>
<p>In order to have these vital conversations, Mthembu explained, “We have to allow for mistakes and forgive each other.”</p>
Administration, Community, Diversity, President L. Rafael Reif, Special events and guest speakers, Staff, StudentsU.S. CTO Megan Smith will be 2015 Commencement speakerhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/us-cto-megan-smith-commencement-speaker-1209
Noted entrepreneur and engineer will return to MIT on June 5 to address the Class of 2015.Tue, 09 Dec 2014 09:00:02 -0500Steve Bradt | MIT News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/us-cto-megan-smith-commencement-speaker-1209<p>Megan Smith ’86, SM ’88, the chief technology officer (CTO) of the United States and an assistant to President Barack Obama, will deliver the address at MIT’s 2015 Commencement exercises on Friday, June 5, in Killian Court.</p>
<p>An internationally recognized entrepreneur, engineer, and technology executive, Smith was named as the nation’s CTO in September. Before joining the White House, she was a vice president at Google, where she led new business development and later joined the leadership team at Google[x], where her work included co-creating the “SolveForX” innovation project and the company’s “WomenTechmakers” diversity initiative.</p>
<p>Smith earned her SB in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1986 and her SM in mechanical engineering in 1988, completing her master’s thesis work in the MIT Media Lab. She served as a member of the MIT Corporation from 1988 to 1993, and again from 2006 to earlier this year.</p>
<p>“As a technologist, Megan Smith dreams on a grand scale, and she delivers just as grandly,” MIT President L. Rafael Reif says. “Her open spirit, startling creativity, and deep technical insight shine through in everything she does, from the&nbsp;world-changing&nbsp;projects she spearheaded with colleagues at Google to her inspiring insights as a&nbsp;member&nbsp;of the MIT Corporation. In the best MIT tradition, Megan takes her work very seriously, but not herself.&nbsp;We&nbsp;could&nbsp;not be prouder that she is now guiding the nation’s technology policy, nor more delighted that she will address our new graduates in June.”</p>
<p>As U.S. CTO, Smith guides the Obama administration’s technology policy and innovation initiatives to advance our nation, with the goal of bringing the benefits of advanced information, data, networked communications technologies, and talented innovators to every sector of the economy.</p>
<p>“Engineers and innovators have a crucial role to play in serving our nation and the greater world,” Smith says. “MIT has been a leader in training the next generation of creative thinkers who will pioneer new technologies, launch businesses, and bring needed solutions to so many of the greatest challenges facing humanity.”</p>
<p>For nine years, Smith was vice president of new business development at Google, where she managed early-stage partnerships, pilot explorations, and technology licensing. During that time, she led the company’s acquisition of major platforms such as Google Earth, Google Maps, and Picasa, and served as general manager of Google.org during its engineering transition.</p>
<p>Smith previously served as CEO of the LGBT online community PlanetOut; helped design early smartphone technologies at General Magic; and worked on multimedia products at Apple Japan in Tokyo. As an MIT student, Smith captained the varsity swimming and freshman crew teams; participated in student research projects, including one that flew on Space Shuttle Atlantis; and was a member of the MIT student team that designed, built, and raced a solar car 2,000 miles across the Australian outback in the first cross-continental solar car race.</p>
<p>“We are honored to have alumna Megan Smith as our commencement speaker,” says Undergraduate Association President Shruti Sharma. “Ms. Smith embodies leadership in engineering, a quality that is especially&nbsp;important to students at MIT. As chief technology officer of the United States, she encourages innovation by incorporating the fundamentals of ‘mens et manus’ through her philanthropy work and her service to the White House.”</p>
<p>“I am thrilled that we will be able to hear from an alumna who embodies so many of the values we cherish as MIT students: scientific pursuit, entrepreneurship, applying knowledge to advance technology, and using our diverse interests to serve others,” says Joanne Zhou, president of MIT’s Class of 2015. “Megan Smith is a remarkable example of someone who has succeeded in expanding the limits of what is scientifically possible, and applied that knowledge to harness technology for helping millions of people. I know that her passion will continue to be an inspiration as we, the Class of 2015, each begin to expand our impact outside of MIT — now, and in the years after graduation.”</p>
<p>“We look forward to having Megan Smith as the 2015 Commencement speaker,” says Graduate Student Council President Kendall Nowocin. “As an alumna, she continually exemplifies MIT’s mission of advancing knowledge to solve the world’s great challenges for the betterment of humankind. Her leadership and contributions will make, and have made, impacts across the globe.”</p>
<p>Smith joins a notable list of guest speakers at recent MIT Commencements, including DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman (2014); Dropbox co-founder and CEO Drew Houston ‘05 (2013); Khan Academy founder Sal Khan ‘98, MEng ‘98 (2012); Xerox CEO Ursula Burns (2011); and Raymond S. Stata ‘57, chairman and co-founder of Analog Devices Inc. (2010).</p>
<p>“I am delighted with the selection of Megan Smith as the Commencement speaker,” says Chancellor for Academic Advancement Eric Grimson, who has long served on MIT’s Commencement Committee. “As an MIT alumna, she understands the passion that drives our students; as the leader of Google[x], she understands the role that innovation and entrepreneurship can play in changing the world; and as the U.S. chief technology officer, she understands how technology can be used for social good.&nbsp;These are all themes that are of great importance to our graduates, and I am sure her remarks will be an inspiration to them.”</p>
<p><em>Note: Megan Smith will deliver the commencement address in her personal capacity and as a graduate of MIT.</em></p>
Megan SmithAlumni/ae, Commencement, Community, Special events and guest speakers, Administration, Government, Technology and society, President L. Rafael ReifMIT indefinitely removes online physics lectures and courses by Walter Lewinhttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/lewin-courses-removed-1208
MIT policy on sexual harassment was found to be violated.Mon, 08 Dec 2014 15:55:39 -0500News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/lewin-courses-removed-1208<p>MIT is indefinitely removing retired physics faculty member Walter Lewin’s online lectures from MIT OpenCourseWare and online <em>MITx</em> courses from edX, the online learning platform co-founded by MIT, following a determination that Dr. Lewin engaged in online sexual harassment in violation of MIT policies.</p>
<p>MIT’s action comes in response to a complaint it received in October from a woman, who is an online <em>MITx</em> learner, claiming online sexual harassment by Lewin. She provided information about Lewin’s interactions with her, which began when she was a learner in one of his <em>MITx</em> courses, as well as information about interactions between Lewin and other women online learners.</p>
<p>MIT immediately began an investigation, and as a precaution instructed Lewin not to contact any MIT students or online learners, either current or former.</p>
<p>The investigation followed MIT protocol for complaints of sexual harassment. The head of the physics department, Professor Peter Fisher, ensured an objective and timely review, which included a review of detailed materials provided by the complainant and interviews of her and Lewin.</p>
<p>Based on its investigation, MIT has determined that Lewin’s behavior toward the complainant violated the Institute’s policy on sexual harassment. Following broad consultation among faculty, MIT is indefinitely removing Lewin’s online courses, in the interest of preventing any further inappropriate behavior.</p>
<p>MIT President L. Rafael Reif says, “Students place tremendous trust in their teachers. Deserving that trust is among our most fundamental obligations.&nbsp;We must take the greatest care that everyone who comes to us for knowledge and instruction, whether in classrooms or online, can count on MIT as a safe and respectful place to learn.”</p>
<p>At the time MIT received the complaint, Lewin was not teaching any courses, either on campus or interactively online. Lewin retired from MIT in July 2009 and last taught a course on campus in spring 2008. He last taught an online <em>MITx</em> course in fall 2013.</p>
<p>Provost Martin Schmidt says, “Dr. Lewin had a long and distinguished career at MIT, and it is painful to learn of the behavior that necessitated this action. However, complaints of harassment must be met immediately and squarely in all cases. Today’s decision was made in consultation with faculty leadership both in the physics department and across MIT more broadly.”</p>
<p><em>The following information describes resources available to those who wish to discuss or report sexual misconduct at MIT.</em></p>
<p><strong>To report an incident to the Institute:</strong><br />
<a href="http://titleix.mit.edu">http://titleix.mit.edu</a></p>
<p><strong>For 24-hour support and information, or to report anonymously:</strong><br />
Violence Prevention and Response&nbsp;<br />
617-253-2300<br />
<a href="http://mit.edu/wecanhelp">http://mit.edu/wecanhelp</a></p>
<p><strong>To report a crime or for police assistance:</strong><br />
MIT Police<br />
617-253-1212<br />
<a href="http://police.mit.edu">http://police.mit.edu</a></p>
Administration, Faculty, MIT presidency, ProvostClaude Canizares to step down as vice presidenthttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/canizares-steps-down-as-vice-president-1125
Reif: “For 40 years MIT has benefited from Claude’s exceptional commitment and service.”Tue, 25 Nov 2014 10:55:00 -0500News Officehttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/canizares-steps-down-as-vice-president-1125<p>Claude Canizares will leave his post as an MIT vice president at the end of the current academic year, on June 30.</p>
<p>President L. Rafael Reif announced the news today in an email to the MIT community. Canizares, who is also the Bruno Rossi Professor of Physics and associate director of the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center, will take a sabbatical after stepping down.</p>
<p>“For 40 years MIT has benefited from Claude’s exceptional commitment and service,” Reif wrote, adding: “Claude has excelled at making contributions that have touched nearly every corner of the Institute.”&nbsp;</p>
<p>A faculty member in the Department of Physics since 1974, Canizares joined MIT’s central administration in 2001 as associate provost; in 2006 he became vice president for research. Since January 2013, he has served as a vice president with responsibility for overseeing MIT’s expanding global engagements.</p>
<p>“MIT is an outstanding institution, thanks entirely to its remarkable people,“ Canizares says. “It has been my great privilege to serve three presidents and four provosts and work with a host of senior administration, faculty, and staff over the past 13 years.”</p>
<p>As vice president for research, Canizares oversaw MIT’s research and research-funding enterprise, as well as the Institute’s relationships with federal and corporate sponsors. He played a key role in establishing the MIT Energy Initiative, the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science. More recently, as MIT’s point person for international strategy, he has worked to develop and run MIT’s portfolio of global engagements, including those in Singapore, Russia, and Abu Dhabi.</p>
<p>During Canizares’ tenure, the Office of the Vice President for Research assumed primary responsibility for the Office of Sponsored Programs. Among other notable accomplishments as vice president for research, Canizares helped establish and oversee the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) and the MIT-Skoltech Initiative; took a leading role in initiating a consortium to build the new Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center in Holyoke; worked to improve the conditions of postdoctoral scholars; and fostered stronger ties between MIT’s main campus in Cambridge and Lincoln Laboratory.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In his current role, Canizares has overseen MIT’s portfolio of international engagements, which has grown rapidly over the past decade: He assisted in the 2007 creation of the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi and SMART in Singapore. Since 2010, Institute officials have partnered with the Singapore University of Technology and Design, and in 2011, MIT joined in the creation of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Russia.</p>
<p>Canizares holds a BA, MA, and PhD in physics from Harvard University. He came to MIT as a postdoc in 1971 and was appointed to the faculty three years later. Before joining MIT’s central administration, he served as director of the MIT Center for Space Research (now the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research) from 1990 to 2002.</p>
<p>Canizares is an authority on high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy and plasma diagnostics of cosmic sources including supernova remnants, X-ray binaries, active galactic nuclei, and quasars. He led the development of the Chandra High-Resolution Transmission Grating Spectrometer on NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.</p>
<p>Canizares is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; has been honored for Meritorious Civilian Service to the United States Air Force; and has received two NASA Public Service Medals, as well as the Goddard Medal of the American Astronautical Society.</p>
<p>Moving forward, Reif wrote, oversight of MIT’s international engagements will shift to the Office of the Provost, with a new associate provost for international activities responsible for managing MIT’s international portfolio. Reif welcomed community input on this new position by email at <a href="mailto:associate.provost.search@mit.edu">associate.provost.search@mit.edu</a>; all suggestions will be treated as confidential.</p>
Claude CanizaresSchool of Science, Astro, Administration, President L. Rafael Reif, Community, PhysicsChris Bourg named director of MIT Libraries http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/bourg-named-director-mit-libraries-1121
Longtime libraries administrator at Stanford tapped to lead MIT’s libraries and the MIT Press.Fri, 21 Nov 2014 11:25:00 -0500Heather Denny | MIT Librarieshttp://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/bourg-named-director-mit-libraries-1121<p>Chris Bourg has been named as the new director of the MIT Libraries, effective in February. Provost Martin Schmidt announced her appointment today in an email to the MIT community.</p>
<p>Bourg comes to MIT from Stanford University, where she is currently associate university librarian for public services. At Stanford, Bourg oversees the largest division of the Stanford University Libraries, with six branches and a collection of more than 4 million volumes.</p>
<p>Bourg has "a deep appreciation for the critical role of scholarly communication in a research university environment, and its links to education and service to the community," Schmidt wrote in his email to the community. “She also has considerable experience with leveraging the capabilities of digital technologies in order to enhance library services.”</p>
<p>Bourg joins the MIT Libraries and MIT Press at a pivotal time, and will play an important role in guiding the redesign and renovation of library spaces. She will also lead the exploration of the Libraries’ role in new modes of learning and global engagement, and advance MIT’s commitment and influence in the area of scholarly communication and open access.</p>
<p>“I am very much looking forward to working with Chris as she undertakes the leadership of the MIT Libraries, particularly at a time when the nature of library services is evolving to accommodate a variety of needs related to research and education,” Schmidt wrote. “I know you will join me in welcoming her to the MIT community.”</p>
<p>As a senior officer with oversight responsibility for the MIT Press, Bourg will also provide strategic guidance to the Press, expanding international engagement and managing its evolving business models. The MIT Press is one of the largest university presses in the world; it publishes journals, scholarly books, trade books, textbooks, and reference works in print and digital formats in a wide range of academic disciplines.</p>
<p>Bourg’s appointment follows a nationwide search that began after the death of the Libraries’ previous director of 17 years, <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2013/ann-wolpert-obituary">Ann Wolpert</a>, in October 2013.</p>
<p>“I have long admired MIT’s commitment to openness, inclusion, and innovation,” Bourg says. “It is an honor to join a community of faculty, staff, and students with a global reputation for excellence, integrity, and service. I look forward to engaging in conversations across the MIT community about the future of library spaces, services, and resources. Together, with the talented staff of the libraries and the MIT Press, we have the opportunity to build on MIT’s legacy and to be a leader in creating new models for scholarly communication and research libraries. I am eager to get started.”</p>
<p>Bourg’s distinguished career began with 10 years of service as an officer in the United States Army, including three years on the faculty of the United States Military Academy at West Point, where she taught sociology and leadership.</p>
<p>Bourg has served in various roles at the Stanford University Libraries over the past 12 years, with increasing responsibilities that included oversight of communications and information services. In her most recent role, she managed the public service facets of physical and digital library services, and was closely involved in the planning of two new library spaces on campus. She has also been a supporter of leveraging digital technologies to advance teaching and research, and is committed to open-access models for scholarly publishing.</p>
<p>Bourg received her BA from Duke University, her MA from the University of Maryland, and her MA and PhD in sociology from Stanford. She has written and spoken extensively on the topics of libraries, leadership, diversity, and social justice. She is a strong advocate for gender equality, and was involved in creating and leading the first Women’s Voices and Influence group for Stanford staff.</p>
<p>In her new role, Bourg will oversee a diverse staff of more than 260 in the MIT Libraries and the MIT Press. The MIT Libraries’ holdings include more than 5 million items in print and digital formats, including electronic journals and books, images, maps, musical scores, and sound and video recordings. There are five library locations on MIT’s campus: Barker, Dewey, Hayden, and Rotch libraries, and the Lewis Music Library. MIT’s library system also includes the Institute Archives and Special Collections, containing MIT’s founding documents, Institute records, and the papers of noted faculty.</p>
<p>In his letter to the community, Schmidt thanked Steve Gass, who has served as interim director of the MIT Libraries for the past year. “Steve has done an outstanding job in this role as the search process for a permanent director was conducted and I will miss his thoughtful advice and counsel,” Schmidt wrote.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>Schmidt also thanked the Libraries Director Advisory Committee, chaired by Lorna Gibson, the Matoula S. Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. Gibson was joined on this search committee by John Charles, vice president for information systems and technology; Iain Cheeseman, associate professor of biology; Arindam Dutta, associate professor of the history of architecture; Tracy Gabridge, associate director of the MIT Libraries; Erica James, associate professor of anthropology; graduate student Mark Molaro of the Department of Chemical Engineering; Kai Von Fintel, professor of linguistics; and Eric Von Hippel, the T Wilson Professor of Management.</p>
Chris BourgAdministration, Libraries, Staff